Why do we have a death penalty?

By PHOEBE HARPER

I have often wondered about the logic behind the death penalty.

 

A basic tenet the Christian majority in the U.S. lives by is, “thou shalt not kill.” This isn’t just a little snippet embedded somewhere in that holiest of books either — it is one of the Ten Commandments.

 

We live in a society where we attempt to find justice for everyone. If a person can prove they are innocent, we let them go. If a person is proven guilty, we mete out what an impartial judge believes is an appropriate punishment. It would seem to me, however, that killing someone is hardly an appropriate punishment for anything. What message does that send? “It’s not okay to kill, unless you already did it, and then we get to do it to you.”

 

There’s more than just a moral issue, too. The death penalty, it would seem, just isn’t a deterrent. People will commit crimes whether they can be put to death for them or not. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, which got its information from the CDC, “the United States has the highest rates of childhood homicide, suicide, and firearm-related death among industrialized countries. Almost all of these other industrialized countries have stopped using the death penalty.”

More than 80 percent of experts surveyed (representing the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association) believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75 percent of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions would create a deterrent effect. Take Holland, where the death penalty is not used, drugs are decriminalized, and prostitution is legal. They have literally laid off government law enforcement employees because the crime rate is so low.

 

Why do we continue, when there’s little, if any evidence from the experts that it is working, when the system is heavily prejudiced against people of different races, when innocent people are put to death, and when it goes against a fundamental principle of the majority of the people in this country?

Is it vindictiveness?

Is it natural bloodthirstiness?

I have trouble believing it is really because we as a society are truly seeking justice or peace of mind. Were that the case, there would be stiffer sentences for child molesters. Prisons would not have cable television or yard time for inmates. Lawyers would be more honest and those who prosecute criminals would not stoop to illegal tactics in order to convict them.

 

I don’t live in a fairy tale. People do horrible, horrible things. There will always be those people who deserve never to see the light of day — but does that mean we have a right to make that judgment? Do we have a inherent ability to take the lives of others based on arbitrary decisions about morality and a purely emotional need for revenge? I don’t think so. Deliberately killing another human being is murder. There is no gray area there.

 

We call ourselves evolved, but when we take the lives of other human beings in the name of “justice,” I only see the characteristics of animals.

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