The death penalty enacts the very behavior it seeks to prevent. It teaches us that it is acceptable to kill, as long as the state is the one killing. By answering violence with counter-violence, capital punishment goes against everything it claims to stand for. American novelist Wendell Berry once said “violence breeds violence. Acts of violence committed in ‘justice’ or in affirmation of ‘rights’ or in defense of ‘peace’ do not end violence.” The United States should not preserve the death penalty because it is economically illogical and ineffective in deterring crime.
Economically, the death penalty is far more expensive to implement than life in prison. For example, the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of imprisoning the criminal for life. In addition, the federal court system spends approximately $12 million each year on defending death row inmates in federal court (Bushman). Most death penalty cases involve a long and expensive judicial process. This time and expense could be used towards rebuilding poorer communities where most crime and murder take place. Instead of killing the criminal, we could try to prevent the problem from the roots. Numerous studies by the Federal Bureau of Investigation show that neighborhoods with higher poverty rates usually have higher rates of violent crime. Additionally, a neighborhood with greater overall income inequality is associated with higher rates of crime, especially violent crime (Sackett). Therefore, if we abolish capital punishment and allocate that money towards the poorer communities, it would deter crime at a much greater effect.
Many argue that the death penalty is important because it deters crime. Nevertheless, FBI Unified Crime reports show that states with the death penalty have homicide rates 48% higher than states without the death penalty. Furthermore, an international study of criminal violence analyzed data from 110 nations over a period of 74 years and found that the death penalty does not deter criminals (Bushman). The death penalty does not deter criminals because most murders are committed to the crime in a fit of rage, anger, or insanity and rarely consider the consequences of their actions. As Camus claimed in his Reflections on the Guillotine, “In short, capital punishment cannot intimidate the man who throws himself upon crime as one throws oneself into misery” (Camus).
Another argument to support the death penalty may include justice and revenge, or the common phrase “eye for an eye”. But with lethal injections and the painless procedure for executions, the death penalty could be seen as an easier punishment than life in prison. Moreover, there are cases in which the death penalty actually prompted the crimes it was supposed to deter. For example, in 1996, Daniel Colwell, who suffered from mental illness, claimed that he killed a randomly-selected couple in a Georgia parking lot so that he would be put to death by the state. Thus, he was sentenced to death and ultimately took his own life while on death row (Bedau). Although the death penalty ensures that the criminal will not commit further crimes, these facts show that it does not have a demonstrable deterrent effect on other individuals.
In conclusion, the United States should abolish the death penalty because of its clear ineffectiveness and wasted taxes that could be used on social injustice. No man in the United States should occupy the job of killing another man.
Works Cited
Bedau, Hugo Adam “The Case Against the Death Penalty.” American Civil Liberties Union,
Aclu, www.aclu.org/other/case-against-death-penalty
Bushman, Brad J. “It’s Time to Kill the Death Penalty.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers,
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-psyched/201401/it-s-time-kill-the-death-penalty
Camus, Albert. Reflections on the Guillotine. Fridtjof-Karla Publications, 1960.
Sackett, Chase. Neighborhoods and Violent Crime | HUD USER,
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/summer16/highlight2.html#title
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