Introduction
The death penalty is the form of punishment where the government sanctions a sentenced person to death (Lyon, 2014). The victims of the death penalty are mostly people who committed capital offenses that affect the countries directly. Over the years, activists amongst other stakes older save ruled out the death penalty terming it a violation of human rights. Despite the cries and efforts of the activists and religious leaders who argue that “DO NOT KILL” (Yelderman et al. 2019) is a biblical commandment that denies everyone the right it to take away the lives of others, countries such as the United States of America still pursue the practice.
Why the Death Penalty?
The death penalty has been ruled the most extreme mode of punishment were the criminal is subjected to an end in their life due to the vast damages or effects caused by the criminal activities they performed(Lyon, 2014). The death penalty was seen as the final means to stop the criminal from performing other crimes in the future. Crime is mostly psychological in that criminals often think of how best to hurt others before performing the crime. Therefore, killing criminals means that they bury the terrible ideas with them.
Consequentially, others argue that the death penalty is a cheaper way of dealing with deadly criminals than life imprisonment, where the state is obligated to provide all the necessary necessities to the criminals such as shelter, clothing, and food (Reiman et al. 1998). For young criminals, this would be a perfect idea, but most of these are adults in their 40,s who, given the life expectancy of 70 years, have a lesser time to live.
Opposing the Death Penalty
Why should someone take another person’s life? Religious people argue that God ranted our life, and only He has the right to take it away (Yelderman et al. 2019). This argument is relatively correct and made sense because there is evidence of those claims in religious books. Everyone is human and cannot, therefore, dictate when and where the life of someone is to be taken whether a righteous person or a criminal, no one has the authority to make such a call.
Conclusion
Sometimes, the judicial system fails to put all factors into consideration, therefore sentencing people to death over allegations that sometimes turn out to be fake. Imagine the guilt someone would live with their entire life once they realize that they sentenced the wrong person? Therefore, the best idea is to persecute people using reversible mechanisms, such as jail terms, since once an appeal is made and won by the defendant, the jail sentence can be terminated, but no life can be brought back.
Annotated Bibliography
Lyon, A. D. (2014). The Death Penalty: What's Keeping it Alive. Rowman & Littlefield.
The book opens with an overview of the history of the death penalty in America, then digs into the reasons capital punishment is a fixture in the justice system of most states. The author argues that religious and moral convictions play a role in media coverage of crime and punishment. Lyon shares detailed records about the death penalty past and present challenges. Her work covers inmates' cases and how they ended up on death row. She also shares in-depth conversations between defense attorneys for inmates on death row. Some of the conversations detail innocent convictions, death row convictions made due to religion, race, and the failure and fate of capital punishment.
Reiman, J., Pojman, L. P., & Reiman, J. H. (1998). The death penalty: For and against (No. 94). Rowman & Littlefield.)
This article is about two philosophers who take opposing positions in this highly engaging work. One philosopher, Pojman, justifies the practice of execution by appealing to the principle of retribution: we deserve to be rewarded and punished according to the virtue or viciousness of our actions. The second philosopher, Jeffrey Reiman, argues that although the death penalty is a just punishment for murder, we are not morally obliged to execute murderers. I found this article useful because these philosophers talk about the importance of the death penalty and why we shouldn't execute prisoners who could be innocent.
Yelderman, L. A., West, M. P., & Miller, M. K. (2019). Death penalty decision‐making: Fundamentalist beliefs and the evaluation of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Legal and criminological psychology, 24(1), 103-122.
"The purpose of this research was to assess the extent to which religious fundamentalism was related to endorsement and weighing of aggravators and mitigators and subsequent death penalty decisions while controlling for relevant religious and demographic characteristics." This article talks about the process in the courtroom during execution cases. The explanatory statement in this article is religion, which has taken varied positions on the morality of capital punishment. The authors talk about religious beliefs, right attitudes, and legal decisions, which impacted how governments handle such punishment practices.
