Essay on capital punishment Essay

For many years, capital punishment has been an issue that has divided the American public opinion. Capital punishment remains a well-discussed issue in the United States, with advocates insisting that it has a deterrent effect on violent crime, and opponents insisting that it’s misguided for many reasons. It’s evident that capital punishment is not only wrong, but also expensive, ineffective and immoral. Capital punishment is much more expensive than lifetime imprisonment. Most costs related to capital punishment cases are at the trial phase because capital punishment cases requires a long and complicated judicial process, including two full cases. There’s noe for determining innocence or guilt and a second one for sentencing. The majority of death-sentenced defendants cannot afford a private defence attorney and the state is forced to provide two defence attorneys per defendant for both of these trials. The jury selection process is also very time-consuming in a capital punishment case. The thing with capital punishment cases is that the majority of expenses are used during the trials. While, the cost of life imprisonment is spread out over many, many years. To any country, a million dollars spent instantly is a lot more costly than an equal amount of money paid progressively over let’s say 50 years. The one million (and the time used to get the criminal convicted) could also easily be used on something else. Education, alcohol/drug treatment and rehabilitating programs are ideal ways of preventing crime thus making sure that criminals doesn’t stay economic burdens to society for the rest of their lives. An example of the superior expense of capital punishment rather than life imprisonment is California. Californian taxpayers pay $90.000 more every year per inmate at the death row than on other prisoners. Capital punishment is totally ineffective. One of the main reasons that a country practise capital punishment is the belief that the fear of losing your life will have a deterrent effect thus preventing capital crimes. First of all no statistics shows that the crime rate is lowered because of the fact that you can be sentenced a to death and no one knows whether capital  punishment deters more than life imprisonment. Second of all, take a look at the overcrowded prisons in USA. If capital punishment actually deterred then the crime rate would be remarkably lower and the prisons wouldn’t be overcrowded. It’s because people under the influence of drugs or desperation aren’t thinking about the consequences of their actions and they are certainly not thinking about the fact that they could get arrested and, in a worst-case scenario, killed for their crimes. Capital punishment is in all its simplicity ineffective because the crime rate remains high in countries with capital punishment and there is therefore no evidence of a deterrent effect. Capital punishment is immoral. No one ever deserves to die and everybody who is willing to receive help should always get second chances. Advocates of capital punishment will tell you that families and friends of a murder victim should have the right to retribution. That is stupid and I’ll tell you why. Retribution is just a fancy word for vengeance and having vengeance, as a reason to kill someone LEGALLY is such a morally wrong concept in the modern society. I mean, â€Å"Two wrongs don’t make a right†; â€Å"An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind†. At some point someone has to be the better man and realize first that killing your loved one’s killer isn’t going to bring your loved one back and second that you are no better when you get the murderer killed. It’s only going to bring more pain and sorrow. You’ve only spread the grief, form on family to another. A lot of precautions are taken when people are being sentenced to death because innocent people shouldn’t be executed. But even with these precautions the risk of executing an innocent man or woman still exists. Witnesses, prosecutors and jurors can all make mistakes. It’s what makes us human. We should embrace the fact, that everyone is capable of making mistakes and remove capital punishment because IF we were to have capital punishment it should be completely flawless so that no innocent man or woman get sentenced to death. It’s time for a sum up. Capital punishment is more expensive than lifetime imprisonment, because the procedure is very time-consuming and cost a lot of money instantly, unlike life imprisonment where the money is paid  progressively over many years. The money and the time could easily be used to ex rehabilitate criminals. Capital punishment is ineffective because it fails to deter and keep the crime rate low. First of all capital punishment is immoral because no one deserves to die. No matter how horrible their crimes are. Second of all retribution, or vengeance, is being used as an excuse to kill someone legally. â€Å"An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind† as Ghandi once said. Third of all the risk of executing an innocent man or woman is too great because of the flaws of the system and man. I’m not blaming anyone it’s human to fail.