Capital Punishment: Is It Right or Wrong?

Capital Punishment: Is It Right or Wrong????

Capital Punishment is a controversial topic discussed in today's society. Capital punishment is often not as harsh in other countries as we may call harsh in our country. There is a heated debate on whether states should be able to kill other humans or not. But if we shall consider that other countries often have more deadly death penalties than we do. People that are in favor of the death penalty say that it saves money by not paying for housing in a maximum prison but what about our smaller countries that abide by the rule of the capital punishment. If one were to look at the issues behind capital punishment in an anthropological prospective than one would see that in some cases no one would assume that capital punishment here in the U.S. is bad. Now those opposed say that it is against the constitution, and is cruel and unusual punishment for humans to be put to his or her death. I believe that the death penalty is against the constitution and is cruel and unusual punishment. The death penalty is cruel because you cannot punish anyone worse than by killing them. It is an unusual punishment because it does not happen very often and it should not happen at all. Therefore, I think that capital punishment should be abolished, everywhere.

I understand that capital punishment is the death penalty, and has been legal in most states for many years and has been legal around the world but its still wrong. Most countries will use capital punishment without justifying the cause. Even though here in the U.S. you can have a trial but other places are bad. Everyone can form there own opinions but just because a kid steals from a store isn't right but in Iraq but the kid would eventually go to jail and get the capital punishment. America's laws are based on the

Constitution. They are considered to be justifiable and what should be right; and are supposed to be the foreground for future laws. It is unconstitutional, though, for an American to be sentenced to his or her death. The eighth amendment states that "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" (US Constitution). It would be against the Constitution for an American to be put to death because it can be considered cruel and unusual punishment. The death penalty is cruel because you cannot punish anyone worse than by killing them. It is an unusual punishment because it does not happen very often. It is also stated in the Constitution under the fifth and fourteenth amendments: "[No person shall be] deprived of life, liberty, or property" (US Constitution). Once a criminal is put in jail, his or her liberty and property is taken away. However, when a murderer is put to death, then his or her life is taken away along with his or her liberty and property. It is unjust to violate the constitution in such a way.

Although capital punishment is unjust, there are still other countries that believe no matter what someone does they have one chance to do wrong and there gone to jail, end of story. Different tribes in Africa also might not call what they do capital punishment but they may believe there right by killing a human as if it's a toy. A few reasons why capital punishment is still legal in the U.S. are because government officials believe that it deters future crimes and murders, and that it is a safeguard for society. By eliminating murderers, society would be considered safer because there would not be a possibility that murderers could roam the streets of America. The states believe that it is a last resort for The United States to take the life of another human being. This argument is not necessarily true. By putting murderers in jail, it would be the same as taking them out of society. There are two ways to take murderers out of society. One way is to execute

them. Another way is to keep those murderers in jail for their entire life. I believe that putting murderers in jail instead of killing them would be the more humane way to take care of society. 75% of Americans support capital punishment and only 17 percent oppose it (Foster, Jacobs, Siegel 80). With the overwhelming number of people that support capital punishment, there must be other reasons why people prefer to keep it. The only other possibility that I can come up with is that people like to see other people suffer greatly for crimes that have been committed. They may think that if the people who commit horrible crimes are executed, then there will never be any risk that they will ever be free to commit those crimes again. This may be true, but it does not give a relevant excuse to kill yet another human.

Also, capital punishment by no means deters any future murders or crimes from being committed (Hood 3). It is because of a human's own free will and freedom of choice that propels him or her to commit crimes. If a criminal commits a crime, he or she is usually deliberately choosing to commit that crime. Hate and murder are not naturally born in humans. It has to be learned and contemplated. There are many ways that people learn hatred and anger, a common feeling related with murderers. One place it can come from is their family. Anger from family members is passed down from generation to generation not necessarily by teaching them hatred but through observations of hatred. If a father beats his wife, then his kids see that as being right. With anger and violence, kids are usually the victims of watching hatred and anger in the family. Although kids learn hatred and violence, they will not learn from the death penalty because they can not understand the death penalty as where it is easier to understand hate.

America's youth are violated of their rights when they are sentenced to the death penalty but recently they have changed the law stating that if under 18 they won't The death penalty has no effect on juveniles because most juveniles are convicted of a murder that is not premeditated (Foster, Jacobs, Siegel 103). Adolescents, who kill, usually come from a disturbed family of drugs and violence. Disturbed families generally have physical fights between the parents and children, which instills violence in those children's minds. This in turn results to fights with schoolmates, or on a higher lever, the juveniles may accidentally kill someone. The juveniles also show more signs of paranoia and illogical thoughts than a non-violent child does (103). The minds of young killers have been shown to be less developed and have lower IQs than average children their age (104). Since the minds of those young killers have not completely developed, they cannot completely understand the consequences behind murdering another