The death penalty has been around for almost as long as humans have. The earliest known written laws of the death penalty are in the “The Code of Hammurabi” where of the 282 laws being written, 25 of them were punishable by death. On April 30th, 1790, the United States Congress establishes a federal death penalty, allowing judges to convict murderers to death for murder, also it allowed judges to convict them to surgical dissection after their execution. Even though the death penalty was very popular in the United States, like always there will be people against it. (ProCon, par 1-6) This is because many believe it is un-humane and that there are other ways around the killing of these murderers, because it’s not only killing the convicted it’s also ruining the lives of their families. The death penalty was put into place to punish the murders. “The argument that murderers are the least likely of all criminals to repeat their crimes is not only irrelevant, but also increasingly false. 6% of young adults paroled in 1978 after having been convicted of murder were arrested for murder again within 6 years of release.” (Pro Death Penalty, Par 12) Statistics show that if they are a young adult convicted of murder but let off with parole, they have a higher rate of getting arrested again for murdering again. A lot of people believe that death is the only just punishment for murderers. John McAdams stated, “If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.” McAdams works at Marquette University and is part of their department of Political Science. McAdams, like a lot of other people, believe that the best thing to do with a murder is to punish them the same way. They believe that because they took someone’s life that they don’t deserve to live anymore either. Although there are a lot of people who are against it, they believe that it is unjust and there are more humane options for the convicted and their families. Instead of the death penalty, many people believe that there are more humane ways of punishing murderers.
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One of these punishments is life without parole, “Life without parole is sometimes called a “true life sentence” because offenders are sentenced to spend the remainder of their natural lives in prison.” (Johnson & McGunigall-Smith, p 328) Life with parole is the most humane way to treat the murderers. It’s not putting innocent lives in danger because they aren’t being let out into the world, but at the same time it’s not letting them off easy because they will be spending the rest of their lives dealing with what they have done. Basically the convicted murderer is being sentenced to death in prison. They are trading their civil lives, their ability to live outside of the prison, for the natural lives they took from the people they murdered. Michael Radelet has been working closely with hundreds of death row inmates in the past 30 years. In his journal article he explains how the death penalty not only affects the condemned but as well as their friends and families. He writes that he has worked with over one hundred inmates and he had never met a relative of theirs who would prefer that they be …show more content…
The people in The First National Death Penalty Society are from different backgrounds and have different experiences with the death penalty, but all unite as one to fight what they believe in to hopefully show them that the death penalty isn’t the answer. This isn’t the only organization working for the end of capital punishment. Another example is the Catholics Against Capital Punishment (CACP), their main mission is to prepare catholics, and others, for informed involvement in the public debate to end the death penalty and promote restorative justice (Catholic Mobilizing Network, par 1) There are a lot of other organizations who are against the death penalty as
One of these punishments is life without parole, “Life without parole is sometimes called a “true life sentence” because offenders are sentenced to spend the remainder of their natural lives in prison.” (Johnson & McGunigall-Smith, p 328) Life with parole is the most humane way to treat the murderers. It’s not putting innocent lives in danger because they aren’t being let out into the world, but at the same time it’s not letting them off easy because they will be spending the rest of their lives dealing with what they have done. Basically the convicted murderer is being sentenced to death in prison. They are trading their civil lives, their ability to live outside of the prison, for the natural lives they took from the people they murdered. Michael Radelet has been working closely with hundreds of death row inmates in the past 30 years. In his journal article he explains how the death penalty not only affects the condemned but as well as their friends and families. He writes that he has worked with over one hundred inmates and he had never met a relative of theirs who would prefer that they be …show more content…
The people in The First National Death Penalty Society are from different backgrounds and have different experiences with the death penalty, but all unite as one to fight what they believe in to hopefully show them that the death penalty isn’t the answer. This isn’t the only organization working for the end of capital punishment. Another example is the Catholics Against Capital Punishment (CACP), their main mission is to prepare catholics, and others, for informed involvement in the public debate to end the death penalty and promote restorative justice (Catholic Mobilizing Network, par 1) There are a lot of other organizations who are against the death penalty as