Society Should Not Allow the Death Penalty

“Dead man walking!” This sound rings through each and every death row inmate a thousand times a day; but should it? Capital punishment is one of the most controversial topics among Americans today. The most severe of all sentences: that of death. Also known as the death penalty, capital punishment this is the most severe form of corporal punishment as it is requires law enforcement officers to kill the offender.

It has been banned in many countries, in the United States, an earlier move to eliminate capital punishment has now been reversed and more and more states are resorting to capital punishment for serious offenses such as murder.

An eye for and eye, a life for a life, who has never heard of the famous lex talionis? The Bible mentions it, and people have been using it regularly for centuries.

We use it in reference to burglary, adultery, love and many other situations. However, some people use it on a different level, some people use it in reference to death.

One steals from those who have stolen from him, one wrongs those who have wronged him, but do we really have the right to kill those who have killed? Today, there is a big controversy over capital punishment whether or not it works, or if it is morally right. We have a certain privilege on our own lives, but do the lives of others belong to us as well? Do we have the right to decide the kind of lives others can or cannot live? We find someone guilty of murder and sentence him to death, does that not make murderers out of ourselves? Those who assist in the death penalty are they not partners in crime?

Society should not allow the death penalty in order to set up a more efficient justice system to prevent the execution of innocent people, to eliminate the unethical deterrent, and to abolish the society taking a life.

Get quality help now

Prof. Finch

Verified

Proficient in: Common Law

4.7 (346)

“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

First, the society should not allow the death penalty in order to set up a more efficient justice system to prevent the execution of innocent people.

Oklahoma executed Sean Sellers, who was sixteen when he murdered his parents, February 1999.This marked thefirst time in forty years that such a young offender was executed in the United States.Criticism and calls for clemency came from around the world, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the American Bar Association, and Amnesty International.These events that have occurred in our country are tearing it apart at its seams: the death penalty and the divided America it has created. Long before thefirst prisons were built there was the penalty of death.The Greeks and Hebrews developed a specific ritual for execution by stoning.

Death by a thousand cuts was popular in China where small bits of flesh were carved away over a period of days or weeks. In the 19th century India elephants were sometimes used to make executions especially excruciating.While in England people convicted of capital crimes were hung, disemboweled, and quartered. For a century, animals also found their way into the gallows; in 1396 a pig accused of fatally injuring a child was dressed in the suit of a man and publicly hanged. Nearly four centuries have passed since thefirst documented lawful execution on American soil in 1608. The early ways of execution were adapted from the British, even though the colonies were thought to be more humane.

In England burning at the stake, quartering, and disemboweling were still common place, hanging was the choice method of killing convicts in the colonies.However, the public hangings still had the festive carnival atmosphere as they did in Europe.Lynching was an unofficial form of execution and was widespread in early America.1,540 documented lynchings were performed at its peak in the 1890’s, during that time 1,098 authorized government executions were performed.