Hammurabi Punishment

The death penalty continues to be a hot topic of debate around the United States. There are those who debate whether the death penalty should be abolished and there are those who affirm or agree with the death penalty. There are those who say it is morally wrong to have the death penalty imposed while others say “an eye for an eye.” While these may be two of the biggest arguments against the death penalty there are also ones that state that the death penalty does not deter criminals from committing the same crime while several other studies show that it is a suitable deterrence for crime. Several states have already abolished the death penalty. Alabama is one of the thirty-one states that still impose the death penalty. Alabama law or Title …show more content…
Hammurabi’s Code goes back to ancient Mesopotamian culture which suggested that a crime committed should have equal or greater punishment. This is where the saying “an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth” comes from. If one commits a crime against another then one should be punished the same way. Those who oppose the death penalty do not necessarily agree with Hammurabi’s code. Those who oppose the death penalty would rather conserve the life of other’s rather than taking away another’s. One may oppose the code because they agree that killing the person who committed the crime will not bring back the dead but also they see the accused as having an “easy way out” rather than living the rest of their life with a guilty conscience. Most who do agree with the death penalty do so because they believe the crime committed should have consequences and that if one life has been taken then so should the life of the criminal who took it. This theory extends well beyond the death penalty however and can be seen in many prison and jail systems. A person cannot simply enter jail or prison without have just been convicted of a crime such as rape and expect the other prisoners to not take action. In prison systems if you are a child molester, rapist, or even a murderer the inmates will take action against the accused right along the premise of an eye for an eye. The same theory can be seen in society as a whole without …show more content…
We should not allow one who has murdered to remain a murderer. The ones truly affected are the victims and the ones sentenced to death no one will shed a tear for. Prison is a vacation for most prisoners they are fed three times a day, have a roof over their heads, and are given jobs. To allow them to live with a life sentence is giving them an easy out not the death penalty. By taking their life they will not be given the luxuries to see family, have meals, and live day to day. The death penalty is appropriate in deterrence of that criminal that they will not commit again. The death penalty is also deterrence for those wanting to know the consequences of their actions and if the legal system imposed the death penalty on all murder crimes then murder rates would fall. The death penalty is just that and that’s what it was put in place for is to deter others from committing the same crime. By allowing states to abolish the death penalty then we are allowing for more murders and more crime to be committed because the fear of death is now