Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Eye for an Eye

In 2013 on April 15, all eyes turned to the city of Boston as two bombs went off at the annual Boston Marathon. The tragedy took two civilian lives by the hands of two perpetrators, brothers who were suspected to be part of a terrorist organization. One brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev went to trial but yet the case still remains unsolved. However, when convicted Tsarnaev was looking at the death penalty as punishment. But in today’s modern age, the death penalty is not something of popularity. Even with a tragedy as big as the Boston Marathon bombings, people still believe it is not humane to pursue that action. I believe that the death penalty is not needed, the phrase an “Eye for an Eye” does not have to be used in the context of death.
Out of the 50 states in America, only 31 states allow capital punishment. It is a controversial issue that has only taken 1,188 people since 1977, and the likelihood of receiving the death penalty as a conviction becomes slimmer every year. There have been many different forms of capital punishment, but the one that is seen as most humane and popular is death by lethal injection. Most who are convicted of the death penalty is the outcome of a murder, giving the phrase an “Eye for an Eye.” If you killed someone, we should give you death as well. But it in the end that does not solve anything. We are hypocritically killing someone because they killed someone.
The death penalty is seen as unpopular because it is wrongly giving the government power to decide the fate of a persons’ life in an inhumane way. The death penalty isn’t solving any problems, only causing more. Not only is the act seen as inhumane, but it’s more expensive to take a life rather than prolonging one. The death penalty on average costs the state $1.6 million but throwing them in prison is about $740,000. It is cheaper to make them wait out their life sentence then giving them the easy way out that is death.

Overall, I believe that the death penalty isn’t a punishment. Rather being stuck in prison for life is more detrimental to a person’s mentality and is more of a punishment. Even though the perpetrator of the Boston bombing is yet to be convicted of his crime, death is not the answer. Living is the answer. Being stuck in prison is the best version of an “Eye for an Eye.”

8 comments:

  1. "The death penalty on average costs the state $1.6 million but throwing them in prison is about $740,000."
    Citation, please.

    "Rather being stuck in prison for life is more detrimental to a person’s mentality and is more of a punishment."
    Unfortunately not. While the death penalty may be a deterrent to you or me, the sort of people who end up on Death Row are there precisely because they did not think ahead.

    I'm in favor of killing people who need killing. However, I am against capital punishment as it is currently practiced in the USA because of the clear evidence that the sentencing practices are racially biased. Not to mention the prevalent misconduct by police and prosecutors to secure convictions.

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  2. How about incarceration rate? The United States spends over $80 billion on incarceration each year, equal to federal income taxes for 6.2 million Americans. Putting people behind the bars is not an effective method at all, and certainly not put them in jails forever.

    "An eye for an eye" doesn't fit the context at all because murderers are more cruel than the government. Murderer's intention is way more thrilling than death penalty.

    Death penalty does not provide comfort for victims' family members. Eliminating death penalty certainly is not the way for giving opportunities to law offenders.
    The existence of death penalty is to intimidate potential offenders. Think about what would happen in the United States if your government abolish the death penalty.

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    1. "The existence of death penalty is to intimidate potential offenders."
      It doesn't work. There are social science studies showing that fear of the death penalty does not provide a deterrent to potential criminals.

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  3. Respectfully, since a number of prisons in America offer free healthcare to inmates while supplying them with food, access to education, and housing, I am inclined to disagree that lifelong imprisonment is always more detrimental to the death penalty. While there are plenty of prisons in which your claim is the case, most of those prisons are overpopulated at the moment anyway, and are costing taxpayers more collectively than a death penalty.

    Additionally, the spots in prison which are allocated to people who will remain there for the entirety of their lives could be better filled by individuals who commit lesser crimes and have the potential to reform - which, in my opinion, should be the point of prisons anyway. Keeping lawbreakers separated from the majority of society until they are no longer a threat to others or themselves is a lot more appealing as a concept than "let's build a room and keep this person alive until they die naturally, like human hamsters that just happen to either kill people or sell drugs or maybe not pay taxes. Definitely no need to make clear distinctions between the severities of their crimes".

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    1. If you believe in rehabilitation, you should also be in favor or reducing restrictions on convicts once they are released from prison.

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    2. I am, actually, though I'm not sure what your point to informing me what I should be in favor of is.

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  4. I am generally against capital punishment because the whole Hammurabi's Code "Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is so antiquated.

    However our incaciration rate is so unreasonably high that getting rid of capital punishment isn't an option. Not only that but as a nation we still struggle racism, sexism and other forms of bigitory that is at a level that is unacceptable. Which therefore means capital punishment isn't going anywhere.

    Taking a life, any life, good or bad is not justifiable to me by any means. Killing a person isn't some kind of reverse button to undue what they did, it seems to me that capital punishment has now become a form of trying to open up space in our prisons.

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    1. "the whole Hammurabi's Code "Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is so antiquated. "
      Just because something was created prior to 2000 is no reason to dismiss it.

      "However our incaciration [sic] rate is so unreasonably high that getting rid of capital punishment isn't an option."
      The ludicrously low rate at which death row inmates are actually killed has a negligible effect on prison overcrowding. You could instead make the argument that the excessive amount of resources spent on death row inmates (in terms of security and time spent filing paperwork with the legal system) could better be spent on other areas of the penal system.

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