The Real Truth About the Death Penalty

The death penalty is a useless part of the American justice system that needs to be banned from use forever. For those of you out there that believe the death penalty is a good idea, I urge you to pay strong attention to what I have to say. One of the biggest arguments by death penalty supporters is that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. I am here to tell you that this not only is false, but is quite the opposite of the truth. For example, a 2006 study by John Donohue of Yale Law states that “The view that the death penalty deters is still the product of belief, not evidence. In fact, the researchers found that, if anything, the evidence suggests that the death penalty may increase the murder rate."(Donohue). This quote clearly shows that the death penalty in fact does not deter murders from happening. If this study is not enough to persuade you then perhaps this statistic will. “Murder rates are lower in states without the death penalty. This holds true even when comparing neighboring states.”(Collins 10). This statistic lays all arguments to rest that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime.

 Next, I am going to shine some light on the truth of the economic facts about the death penalty. Death penalty supporters like to say that it is much cheaper and much more economically friendly to put someone to death than it would be to have them serve life in prison. This is completely wrong. A study done in 2008 shows that, “In Maryland, an average death penalty case resulting in a death sentence costs approximately $3 million. The eventual costs to Maryland taxpayers for cases pursued 1978-1999 will be $186 million. Five executions have resulted.”(Death Penalty Information Center). In other words, if there was no death penalty, Maryland would have saved $186 million. This is just in a small state like Maryland. If the death penalty was gone across the whole country we could be saving billions. The economic effects of the death penalty in our country are startling and the death penalty needs to be removed. Now that the death penalty supporters know the truth about the economic impact of the death penalty, I hope that they will rethink their view on the death penalty altogether.

               Lastly, I would like to put to rest the other big myth about the death penalty. Many death penalty supports believe that people convicted of vicious first degree murders should be put to death. This is just wrong. If an eye for an eye was the code in which we lived by, our society would be nowhere near the level that it is at today. Retribution leads to nothing but more violence. Besides, not everyone that is convicted of murder is actually guilty. How awful would it be to put someone to death who was later found out to be innocent? This would be a disaster because life is so precious and you only get one of them. If you think that putting an innocent man to death would never happen then you are wrong. In an Act introduced to congress by Senator Russ Feingold, an interesting statistic was revealed. “Since the reinstatement of the modern death penalty, 87 people have been freed from death row because they were later proven innocent. That is a demonstrated error rate of 1 innocent person for every 7 persons executed.”(Feingold). This is very troubling if you think about it. What if one of those 87 people was not freed in time? What if we executed an innocent man? This cannot be allowed to happen. We must do the right thing and get rid of the death penalty altogether because clearly there are no facts that show any usefulness of it whatsoever.

Source Citations:

Collins, Jeremy J. "The Death Penalty Has Not Been Proven to Deter Murder." Opposing Viewpoints in Context. The Carrboro Citizen, 19 July 2007. Gale Group. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. http://ic.galegroup.com.libproxy.howardcc.edu/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=OVIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=.

Facts About the Death Penalty." Death Penalty Information Center. N.p., 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.< http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf>.

Feingold, Russ. "Top 10 Pros and Cons." Should the death penalty be alllowed?. ProCon.org, 13 Apr. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000>.