I was inspired by recent articles in my classmates’ blogs about their opinions regarding the death penalty. Since this isn’t a topic I have approached yet, I thought I would write my 7th assignment for my blog on this topic. 250-500 words on how I feel about the death penalty in Texas.
How do I feel about the death penalty? A small part of me believes that if someone commits a heinous crime such as murder, that they shouldn’t be allowed to be a part of this world. The other, larger, part of me wonders how much better we are for killing that person? How sure are we that person is guilty?
Some people will say “an eye for an eye”. When someone gets arrested for theft, do we steal from them? When someone gets arrested for assault, do we assault them? No, we don’t. We put them in jail, attempt to rehabilitate them and then set them free on the world again.
Here’s some statistics to keep in mind:
- As of January 1, 2011 there were 321 inmates on death row; 127 of them African-American, 97 Caucasian, 94 Hispanic, and 4 of them Asian; 311 of them men and 10 of them women.
- There have been 10 botched executions in Texas since 1985. These botched executions caused these inmates pain, which is the opposite of what the death penalty is supposed to be doing.
- Texas has the highest execution rate of any state with a cumulative number of executions since 1976 of 472 people. The state with next highest execution rate is Virginia with 108 people. Yet, Texas is ranked 18th for murder rates.
The biggest aspects for me, are innocence and humanity. There have been people who were sent to death who are now found to be more than likely innocent, such as; Ruben Cantu, Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos DeLuna. The truth is, even with all the evidence and all the witnesses, most of the time there is still a shimmer of doubt. Because of this doubt I feel that the death penalty is not our best option. It’s not our most humane option.
I don’t believe in eye for an eye. I believe in turning the other cheek. I believe in kindness, hope and love. I believe that killing these people, even though we have a solid reason (because they believed they did too), just makes us as bad as them. We condemn them for murder, and yet we commit it ourselves.
The Death Penalty – A Social Responsibility
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a classmates blog regarding the death penalty I was inspired to gather some information to paint a slightly different picture. The blog was primarily anti-death penalty as the author believes that the death row inmates could be innocent. She also stated that the death penalty is “not our best option and it’s not our most humane option.” She asks us as a society to “turn the other cheek and believe in kindness, hope and love.”
I found a quote from Professor John McAdams of Marquette University that exactly described my feeling on the subject, "If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."
My classmate speaks of rehabilitation and to then “set them free on the world again.” Currently 56% of violent felons are repeat offenders and 61% of all felons are repeat offenders. How can we possibly consider rehabilitating someone that has committed murder? We are not taking the chance that another robbery will happen; we are taking a chance that another innocent person will be murdered. We are socially irresponsible if we allow these types of criminals back on the street. Additionally, we are socially irresponsible to keep these people in prison where they can cause harm to other inmates. Our society is based on rules to keep people safe. Every able person knows that killing someone is against those rules. Everyone knows that there is a consequence. These people sentenced to death row knew what they were doing. They knew the consequence to their actions. I say, if you make it clear that the consequence to murdering someone is the death sentence then let the burden of guilt be placed on the murderer for killing an innocent person as well as themselves.