Every year a great number of people are sentenced to death by lethal injection because they have committed some of the worst crimes, but do they all deserve it and are all of them actually guilty for the crimes they are accused of? The answer to that is simply no, since 1973 a total of 140 (fact provided by deathpenaltyinfo.org) have been exonerated of the charges they were sitting on death row waiting to die for, and I’m sure some have actually been executed who have been innocent. Even though the death penalty is not all bad and does punish criminals for the harsh crimes they commit, but is it alright to have a system in place where there is a chance that some of the innocent could slip through the cracks and lose their lives for something they truly did not do? On average a person who is sentenced to death and then found to be not guilty, spends 9.8 years in prison (fact provided by deathpenaltyinfo.org) before they are released. That has to be a very frustrating feeling, to be sentenced to a crime you did not commit then waste that many years of your life locked up in prison. It has became such a serious problem that a little over a year ago Illinois decided to abolish the death penalty that they had set in place because of the fear that some innocent people were being executed. For the 15 individuals in Illinois who were still on death row waiting their execution, their charges were changed to life in prison. The death penalty is not all bad; it can help bring justice to the victim’s family. Not only can it bring some relief to those families who have lost loved ones because of violent offenders, but it also prevents those criminals from reaching the streets and killing once again. Also the death penalty is much cheaper then keeping people in prison for a long period of time. According to realcostofprisons.org, the cost of housing an inmate in Tamms is about $64,805 and that is per year for only one inmate.
Even though there are a lot of good reasons to have a death penalty I believe that there can be just as many arguments against it. If you could go to the website http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000 it shows how every reason there is for the death penalty has both positives and negatives and mistakes can easily be made. With that being said I do believe that a more fair system should be put in place because I don’t believe it is fair for any innocent people to be sentenced to death but I also don’t know of a more fair way of figuring out how to punish the most serious offenders. The only solution would be to give them life in prison so they can be locked in a cage and have to think about the seriousness of their actions that led them to spending the rest of their lives in prison. With all of that being said I would like to ask all of you if you believe that the death penalty does more good than it does harm or is it something that should be abolished because of the chance that some wrongly accused could lose their lives?
Work Cited:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/09/134394946/illinois-abolishes-death-penalty
http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2012/02/il_tamms_editor.html
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000
This is an extremely interesting issue of criminal justice students to look at. There are many ups and downs to this issue. I can totally understand the concept of death by lethal injection; however, as you mention 140 in 40 years could have been a lot innocent deaths. I agree with your idea for life in prison as alternative but it does not bring the same sense of justice to the victim's families. With that being said I do believe the death penalty should be continuously implemented. I feel the societal benefit drastically outweighs the potential costs.
ReplyDeleteI've never thought of the fact there could have been innocent lives taken from the death penalty. I just typically think about how much money we are losing to keep these life sentence inmates behind bars. I can agree with Aaron that the life penalty serves more as a sense of justice to the victim's families. But then again the death penalty shows no results of stopping crime from others. People will still end up in prison for a life sentence, even with the death penalty in action. Since we have abolished the death penalty we still have overcrowding within the prison system. So who knows if abolishing it was a good or bad thing.
ReplyDeleteI think that we need the death penalty, due to the fact that it can be used as a deal/plea bargain to gather more evidence to an investigation or closer for a family. Also we are using so much money housing and feeding these inmates for life sentences. I understand that some people are found not guilty later down the road however those numbers are very low.
ReplyDeleteEven though 140 lives in 40 years would have have been taken, I think it is important to remember that technology was no where near how advanced it is today. Even in the past 20, or even 10 years, drastic improvements have been made in technology. I feel these improvements would dramatically decrease the amount of innocent lives taken due to the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteThe death penalty always seems like a hot topic in criminal justice. There are pros and cons to having someone be put on death row, but I feel that there are more cons. I personally don’t like the death penalty, because even if one innocent person is put to death, it shouldn’t be worth it. I am glad it was abolished in Illinois and would rather see someone live in prison with out parole and have their freedoms taken away instead of being killed with a needle. However, I can see the point where the victim’s family might want that person be put to death. That is one reason why it is such a debate, because justice might not be served.
ReplyDeleteI have been pro death penalty every since my brother was murdered. For some families especially when the crime was particularly horrific it brings them a little closure knowing that there is no way that the person will get out some families on the other hand would prefer to keep the person in prison for life and I do think that the victims family should have a say in what happens. I don't think that we need to have an execution every day but I think that we still need it. There are plenty of people that are without a doubt guilty and a threat to society and should be executed.
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