[Week XI] Argumentative Essay

Should We Abolish Death Penalty?

Death penalty is an execution to a person that breaks the law and many countries have used it as a form of punishment since ancient times. Countries that still use death penalty for example are USA, China, and Indonesia. Nowadays many countries started to reject death penalty as a punishment for a crime because of various reasons and decided to abolish it. Is this really the right thing to do? There is also a debate whether to abolish death penalty or not. The ones who wanted to abolish death penalty are usually called as abolitionists. In my opinion death penalty should not be abolished because it is still effective as a crime deterrent and punishment.

Crime has been a part of the society and it is impossible to completely suppress it and make it gone. There are various crimes ranging from the minor ones to big ones such as mass murder. Death penalty should be used for punishment in big crimes. Some people would say that death penalty is inhumane and should not be used. If the death penalty is not used the criminal would think that he won’t die no matter what if he commits crime and just be sent to prison. This is why we need death penalties for crime like this. In countries that use death penalty the crime rate is lower than countries that do not use death penalty.

Many abolitionists claim that death penalty is just a cruel murder and not punishment. However, this is not true because nowadays death penalty is carried out with a quick and painless method such as shooting the heart or lethal injections. This is different than ancient times where the method used was painful and slow. Other reason is because death penalty only be carried out to severe crimes and there is a law that regulates it.

The opposing arguments said that death penalty does not bring the murdered victim back to life. However, this is not the purpose of the death penalty. Its purpose is to make sure the crime ended right there and to put an ease to the victim’s family that the criminal has been properly punished.

Some people also said that everyone should be given a second chance and death penalty prevents this. This is true, however people who were put in the death row usually commit a severe crime. Criminals who commit mass murder or other severe crimes usually are not sane anymore and impossible to make them change to a better person. If people like this are released to the society they will just commit more crime and will endanger a lot of people. So it is better if they are just executed because of their crimes.

Opponents of the death penalty point out that there is a possibility of wrongly executing an innocent man. Of course, there is a possibility of wrongly sending an innocent man to prison, or wrongly fining an innocent man, but they contend that because of the finality and severity of the death penalty, the consequences of wrongly executing an innocent person are much more wrong. There has never been any proof of an innocent man being executed, although there are some studies that show in a few cases, there is a possibility that someone was wrongly executed. To avoid this before the criminals are going to be put in the death row, they have to follow a complex process which consists of series of trials to determine if the criminals are guilty or not and if they are deserved to be executed. This way no innocent man will be executed, at least it will decrease the chance of it.

Death penalty is also cost effective because the government does not have to waste the resources taking care of the dangerous criminals. If a lot of criminals that commit severe crimes are being put to prison for the rest of their lives, it will waste the resources and there is a possibility that they will do the crime again when they are out of the prison, also it will not make the prison overcrowded.

In conclusion death penalty should not be abolished because of these reasons. In fact, it is better that a lot of countries legalize death penalty for the good of their people. This is good as long as the death people are being done to the right people and have clear rules that cannot be twisted and interpreted in different ways.