The Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty

by Dusty Craine

        Due to the rapid increase in crime the past ten years and prison overcrowding, more attention has been drawn to the opinion that something has to be done to the United States Criminal System.  We need to reevaluate the way we treat people we are convicted of unspeakable acts of merciless slaughter or even rape.  The United States Justice System must be made solid again.

        Most people have an opinion on this heated subject.  Some say "we need it" others say "the person pulling the switch would be no better than the person in the chair."  We need to look at other options beside prison.  There are too many murderers running loose because the jails were full of shoplifters and gang members.  Some of these loose maniacs kill mere months later.  For the sake of argument lets look at the Pros and Cons.

The Pros:

        There are many reasons why the Death Penalty should be used again.  There is too much money going into holding killers, rapists and psychos.  It cost more to hold one inmate one years than to put him through Harvard Law School.  These people knew what they were doing when they did the crime, give them consequences.  There is also the "eye for an eye" argument.  Make them feel what their victims felt.  The punishment for murder right now is three square meals a day, a roof over their heads, a bed to sleep in, very often activities to do.  That include Tennis, Weightlifting, or even Prostitutes.  Lets change the penalty for murder from country club to Death.

The Cons:

        "What if the man is innocent?"  That is the flip-side.  Sure it is easy for us to say If they murder, kill them too.  But what if the man is wrongly accused and convicted of murder.  What if the man was sitting at home alone, and therefore had no alibi.  Why would we want to kill a innocent man?  I even ran across someone who said the only true justice is divine justice, she said God will judge them.  She said we had no right to establish guilt or innocence.

        As you can see the Pros and the Cons are a convincing bunch.  Me personally, I think we need the Death Penalty again.  I also believe we have to change a few things in courts though.  I believe the accused should speak on his/her own behalf.  Making Polygraph tests mandatory would also save alot of time.  I will now conclude this paper with the question "What do you think?"