|
Death Penalty/Persuasive Essay
Hello, I'm a female 17 years old and a JR. in High school. Also I'm from Pennsylvania,& that will help with my question.
Sometime last week I was assigned to write a Persuasive Essay, since I have one of the higher grades in class the teacher thought it would be appropriate that I tackle a harder issue to discuss, which lead her to assign me the Death Penalty.
I need some reasons why people support the death penalty and the reasons why they support it. I have a few reasons picked out but I would like to see if there are better reasons out there and see what other people's thoughts are.
Also, please don't answer this if you disagree with it.
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Work & School category?
Maybe give some free advice about: School?
Here are the two best arguments I know against the death penalty
1) The government doesn't deserve to be entrusted with such an absolute power. We know that police, prosecutors, judges, and juries are human beings; as such, they can make mistakes and be corrupted.
A number of people on death row have been exonerated, fortunately before being executed, by DNA evidence, so there's absolute proof that innocent people have been sentenced to death in this country.
Life without the possibility of parole has been made available in a number of states as an alternative to the death penalty for that very reason - if they do find that someone turns out to be innocent, they can release them.
But not if they're dead.
2) Life without parole is actually a harsher punishment than death, in most cases. With the death penalty, whatever the prisoner experiences is over in less than an hour. But life in prison means years of suffering.
It could also be argued that virtually no other industrialized democracy executes, and that the general standard of international morality condemns the idea of execution.
As for arguments FOR the death penalty...I never saw one that didn't basically turn out to be a desire for revenge. There's absolutely no evidence to back up the idea that the death penalty deters people from committing murder or any other crime. The USA actually has a much higher crime rate than any country which DOESN'T have the death penalty, in fact.
]
The death penalty is supported because it cuts down on the amount of harmful people in the world.If someone does something very wrong(such as killing another person)and they end up getting caught-you take their life so that there's one less murderer that we have to deal with.
From another stand point(in the case of murder)it could be seen as a more "he did this,so we're going to do it back" type of thing.Think Hamurabi's code of laws.
Penalty of death could be used as an example to showcase what happens when you do a certain crime so that people know that they shouldn't do it.
Some people could believe that life in prison is just stupid.You figure that they're going to end up dying locked up in a cage anyways,so why not just kill them and get it over with?
Finally,some people just flat out think that it's the only way to punish someone for what they've done.They don't feel like jail is good enough punishment,so they kill them.
]
ive written about this topic. many people disagree with the death penalty because it means that by killing that person you are stooping down to their level. while others disagree in saying that it will get rid of the bad people and set an example for the others that havent been caught commiting serious crimes.
hope i helped. those were the two main reasons i remember.
]
More Questions: |