PAper Example on Death Penalty Misuse by Corrupt Governments

Introduction

If the death penalty was allowed, there is the possibility of having it misused by corrupt and tyrannical governments. While the death penalty is allowed in some countries for serious crimes such as first-degree murder, there exist governments that use executions even for petty crimes. If the death penalty was allowed, it would be possible to have people accused of adultery, drug-related offenses, and political crimes being executed. Thus, execution would be used by governments to suppress and control others but fake it on crime. In addition, it would create an avenue for governments to set their own terms as to what constitutes the death penalty. The citizens would be threatened with execution every time they claim for their rights, thus killing democracy and the freedom of speech and association.

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Refutation

Those in support of the death penalty argue that the death penalty is a deterrence for criminal activities. There is not stiffer and harsher punishment than the death penalty. Criminals will fear to commit crimes that can lead to them being handed the death penalty. Everybody fears death, and no one, even the most hopeless person, would want to die. As a result, there is the probability that people will avoid engaging in crime if they know that they will be faced with stiffer measures such as death. In addition, a killed person cannot commit a crime. Therefore, when a criminal is executed, the living are left at peace comfortable that one of the possible murderers has been eliminated.

There is also the assertion that the death penalty for the criminal is the best form of justice for those who were killed by those criminals. If someone kills another out of nothing, they also need to be punished in a similar manner. There is a high number of innocent lives that have been lost as a result of a crime. Such people who are killed leave behind families and friends suffering and grieving for the loss. In a case where the parent is killed or the breadwinner in the family, the children are left with no one to take care of them, and it may even affect their education since there will be no one to pay for their school fees. Life becomes very difficult for such families, and their future dreams are just shattered out of the recklessness of a criminal. It would be very painful for such families to see the person who killed their family member moving freely on the streets after completing his or her imprisonment. This would be an injustice to such families. To ensure that justice has been served for such families, the best thing would be to kill such a criminal.

Healey (2016) argued that people who kill should also be killed to prevent them from killing more people. A person who has the courage to kill one person is also able to kill another and another. If such people are given the liberty to live, then they might end up killing more people than they would have killed if they were executed the moment they killed the first one. Besides, there are people who, even after being given life imprisonment, go ahead and kill other prisoners or wardens. For example, a prisoner named Lemuel Smith, who was serving six life sentences in New York for several crimes he had committed, including murder, killed a female security guard (Garrett & Kovarsky, 2018).

Even after doing this act for another time, he still could not be killed because New York does not allow the death penalty. With such a trend, there is a possibility that the prisoner could kill more people. To eliminate such cases, the best thing to do is to kill the person and solve the problem for good. This is just a single case among many cases where prisoners convicted to life imprisonment end up killing guards or other prisoners.

The death penalty saves the citizens a lot of money. It is to be noted that when an inmate is serving life imprisonment, he or she is fed by the tax that is paid by the taxpayers. This includes the clothes that he or she wears, the food, the water, the soap, toothpaste and every single thing that he or she uses is paid up for by the citizens. This is an improper use of money. Taxpayers' money should be used for the right purpose but not to feed criminals. Executing such people would save the nation lot of money, which can be diverted into other sectors of the economy.

Rebuttal

While there are those that argue that the death penalty deters crime, there is no statistical evidence to support this proposition. If anything, the number of crimes has seen to rise even in nations that practice the death penalty. For example, in countries such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, India, and Iran, where the death penalty is practiced, there has not been evidence that the crime rate has gone down in those countries as a result of the death penalty practice (Yorke, 2016). If anything, the crime rate in these nations still remains higher than in nations that do not practice the death penalty. Deterrence is a result of changed behavior and transformation. The death penalty does not do this. The justice system needs to perform its major role, which is to transform criminals and make them better people who can be reaccepted into the society. Execution has never been the role of the justice system.

Executing a person because he or she murdered another cannot be used as a form of consoling the victim’s family. Two wrongs never made a right. Thus, if a person murders another, it would be imprudent for the justice system to help the person realize the weight of his or her actions, which would lead to him or her being remorseful and apologizing to the family. This would be a better way of calming the families and making them understand what led to such actions. If the person would have been killed, the family would have been left with scars and questions that would have never been answered.