Free Custom «Death Penalty Analysis» Essay Paper

The death penaltyor capital punishment is a legal process which justifies a person being put to death by thejudicial authorityas a punishment for a crime. The judicial judgment to punish anyone this way is adeath sentence, while the real process of killing the criminal is anexecution. Crimes that can lead to the death penalty are known ascapital offences orcapital crimes. Capital punishment is considered to be by those who are in favor of it not just useful, but essential for the successful existence of any modern society. The purpose of the death sentence is not to perform the act of revenge, at least no judicial authority can admit the probability of such a case, however, and in the third-world countries where the bribery flourishes immensely, this process can be used to abuse the rights of other people. The fundamental objective is to correct or reform people. The death sentence can be particularly effective in showing the potential perpetrators their errors on the example of others and assist in their rehabilitation so they can live in the society without endangering the fellow citizens (“Arguments for and against the Death Penalty,” 2000).

 

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On the other hand, the majority of people refers to the inhumanity of this form of punishment, to the opposition of the democratic and liberal rights of the humans, however, I do not see a normal, effective existence of the society when there is constantly a possibility of the murderers escaping from prison or being released from the institution starting to commit the same crimes. The opponents also stress on the possibility of the innocent people being executed for nothing, just due to the wrong evidence or someone’s ill desire for them to leave the life. This point is stronger, but to eliminate such a possibility at all, the government should reform the judicial system more to make it look for even deeper pieces of the evidence, act still more professionally and seriously, so no innocent can be put to death.

People can argue against the death penalty as much as they wish to point out to many bad examples and proving that a life sentence is enough to rehabilitate a person, but they seem to not look at the problem deep enough. If the criminal has enough money, his stay in the prison can be quite comfortable and trouble less. Moreover, life sentence, in my opinion, only makes the human heart more stony and ferocious as those prisoners realize that they will have to spend the rest of their life within a limited territory which triggers in them the power to escape and cause even more harm to everyone who put them there.

Furthermore, the government spends a lot of money on keeping them in the prisons. In the entire world people are suffering from hunger, however, a good number of law-breakers can enjoy their free bread for killing others. For example, in 2008 the average cost of keeping a prisoner was $100-$130 per day – the figure differed according to the area of the country. Therefore, about $40,000 are spent nationwide for each prisoner per year that is an average wage of the worker in the United States (Ornellas, n.d.).

On the other hand, the objective look at the situation should be the most important, and there are many profits for the nation from the prisoners who are sentenced to death. First of all, in the beginning of the nineteenth century a new industrial prison-contracting system emerged. The efficiency of this innovative system was generally recognized, therefore, it spread rapidly during the industrial revolution marking the first significant wave of beneficial prison labor in the United States.

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According to the contract system, all states became selling their property right for prisoners’ labor to a couple of the largest corporations of that period in exchange for substantive profits – frequently up to 150 percent of all costs of carceral governing. Having to face constant cruel punishment for a disagreement to work, convicts worked very hard for various private companies which built factories both inside of the state and also federal prisons (LeBaron, 2012). Still, there are a lot of restrictions for the life-sentenced prisoners’ labor as the society does not really consider it moral to use the products manufactured by the killer.

The economic advantages which are obtained by the companies that use inmate labor are drastic, and most of them facilitate annual profit margins twice their costs (McLennan, 2008, 84). Those companies who agree to have prisoners in their factories do not have to pay rent for storage, buildings, or insurance, and give only very low (if any at all) money for labor discipline and supervision. Probably most importantly, prison contractors buy inmate labor far below free-market rates (Chang & Thompkins, 2002).

Secondly, by holding life convicts in prisons during their natural death, the country reveals a great deal of humanity and corresponds to the moral principles of the different religious beliefs, especially Christianity. The human being must learn to be human enough to help or at least bear and try to change those who made such a wrongful step in their life. The chance of the rehabilitation, at least in the way of thinking of the convict, should be given to anyone as right to live is the natural human’s right from the birth.

However, if to take a good look at the countries who widely execute death penalty, then the best example will definitely be Singapore in Southeast Asia which is correctly considered the safest country in the entire world. It is not possible to find cleaner and more organized country than the pointed above. The rules are so strict there that no one even dares to throw a piece of paper on the pavement or spit on it as they will pay a very large fine or even get into prison. Many people say that such treatment is not democratic and restricts the freedoms of the person greatly; however, because of this treatment citizens learnt how to lead a highly-cultural life where manners and morals at the top place (“Arguments for and against the Death Penalty,” 2000).

Criminals who commit rape, murder, or any other heinous crime know what they are doing and what punishment they can carry. Countries without death penalties, therefore, have larger criminal rates as people are sure that the worst what can happen to them is life imprisonment which for many of them is not that bad for when they are leading quite lousy existence anyway. They are not conscious as much about their actions as citizens of the countries that execute criminals.

It is also important to note that the majority of violent crimes those men commit whose age range is 18-40. For the government, it means that they still may have to live a bigger part of life, at least as the statistics shows. In other words, such criminals may cost the country as much as approximately a million dollars during the whole period that they spend in prison without the slightest chance of release or rehabilitation, despite all the possible work that they do for the country (“Arguments for and against the Death Penalty,” 2000).

It may sound ridiculous, but at the second part of 2008 the United States kept more people in prisons than the Swiss population numbers in general. If all these people were to form a separate country, it would be on the 94^th place according to the population with a possible GDP of the area of $300 billion which is much more than South Africa, Argentina, and Portugal (Ornellas, n.d.).

Going even more back to the history of the USA, from 1968 till 1976 there were no executions at all. During that period, the murder rate increased by a stunning 50 percent making people feel free in whatever they do. The next 20 years changed the situation a bit: the murder rate fluctuated within 15 percent of the 22,000 per year figure.

An interesting fact started to be evident from 1994 – the amount of murders and other violent crimes were decreasing continuously. This happened due to the significant increase in the execution rates when the government had finally decided to reintroduce the death penalty or at least those prisoners who served the life sentence were executed (Ornellas, n.d.).

The death rows were prisoners can await their fate for over ten years cost the country much more than standard prisons. The inmates have access to the legal process that at the end costs a small fortune. To keep those prisoners in the right place for them, the taxes are taken from the ordinary citizens who simply wish to live in the safe country (Ornellas, n.d.).

It is quite unusual for me to hear my co-citizens who join the Armed Forces on their free will, however, when they are sent to the place with the ongoing military activities (such as, Afghanistan), they try to look for the way to escape from their duty. They knew what they were signing for; however, they try to avoid the responsibility when it comes to it. The same situation is with the murderers, rapists, and others alike – they know what they are going for committing a felony, therefore, they should carry the full responsibility for their actions. I do not have pity for them as each of us chooses our own way in life – they chose murder, they will be executed for it.

I recognize that my position must sound very callous and even cruel, nevertheless, I am sure that the majority of people across the whole world would accept it, if not publicly (because they are afraid of being accused in undemocratic and inhumane behavior) than definitely deep in their hearts as the crime should be equally punished. Moreover, let us think about the feelings of the mother whose son was murdered, and the murderer is free to spend his life in the prison, communicate with others, walk, eat, read, sometimes work. What this mother will want? Will she be satisfied with our judicial system? Will she consider our government to be just and caring for its citizens? The answers seem to be obvious. The various organizations can stand up for the rights of everyone as much as they wish; albeit, there should be a limit to everything – to respond with kindness to a capital crime means to undermine our own safety.