Abolishing the Death Penalty

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Abolishing the Death Penalty

When a person is found guilty in this country, they may either serve a term in prison or be put on death row. On death row, the person awaits their death as a punishment for the crime they committed. The United States remains in the minority of nations in the world that still uses death as penalty for certain crimes. Many see the penalty as barbaric and against American values. Others see it as a very important tool in fighting violent pre-meditated murder. The death penalty should be abolished because of its financial costs to tax payers, it’s barbaric, and its ineffectiveness.

The average American thinks would think that it’s simpler and cheaper to kill a convicted person rather than pay millions of tax dollars to keep the convict in jail for a life term. However, they are very wrong. One reason why the death penalty should be abolished is because of its expensive costs. In reality, the death penalty is two to five times more expensive than keeping a convict in prison for life. This expensive price tag has to do with the endless appeals and additional required procedures that drag the process out. Since a convict’s life is on the line, the chance of making the mistake of killing the wrong person has to be very slim to none. Therefore, more than one trial or appeal is done to make sure this is the exact person that will be punished for the crime by death. Sometimes, the person found guilty sits on death row 15-20 years before they are officially put to death. Not only are taxpayers paying to keep the convicted person in prison, but they are also paying for the judges, attorneys, court reporters, clerks, and court facilities. Do we Americans really have that many resources to waste?

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...fied individuals. Although the court system is at fault, the ultimate risk is the mistake of killing the wrong person.

The expensive price tag for tax payers, barbaric method, and ineffectiveness of the death penalty are reasons why the punishment should be abolished in the United States. To create a society where there is true equality and justice means we must relinquish the barbaric methods we use in our society. Capital punishment is one of those outdated methods for punishing people convicted of a crime. Why use a justice system, whose purpose is to give the best and most fair punishment to those found guilty, when there is a chance of being punished in the most unfair and unjust way? Simply seeking revenge for the murder of a loved one is not enough to waste millions of dollars, give a hypocritical image to the world, and gain superficial satisfaction.

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