Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment, also referred as the death penalty, has been so controversial that many people who live in this world feel that this topic is important. Why is this topic important? A person’s life is on the line in this punishment that’s why. This punishment does not allow no room for mistakes because once you kill the person you cannot go back. In addition, it is important to these people because since capital punishment is the act where ones life is taken, people often think if it’s morally acceptable and if doing this does has more benefits than cost. This is important to me because I live in a state where this punishment is legal and live less than 50 miles away from a prison that performs the death penalty. So I ask myself: Should the death penalty be legal or illegal?

There are many arguments where people disagree and agree to have capital punishment be legal. For those new to the subject, capital punishment is used to execute people who have done horrible crimes like first-degree murder, being a spy, or even a terrorist. The death penalty laws were first made in the eighteenth century B.C. Even though these laws were made this long ago, the first execution was not until 1608 where Captain George Kendall was executed. There are many arguments that the death penalty has many flaws. For example, you could not sentence a person who is mentally ill to be executed. Reason for it is because they are protected under the United States Constitution. If you remember, all the mass shootings that have occurred, they said the shooter was “mentally ill” so since they are mental ill they cannot be sentenced to get executed. It defeats the whole purpose of capital punishment.

The central debate that is going on now is if the death penalty should be illegal or legal? One side, those who think it should be legal, argue that these criminals need to be put the death so they do not kill anyone else. In addition, they argue that this act gives closure for the victims that lost their loved one. On the other side, those who think it should be illegal, argue that it is not morally right to take ones life. Especially since our country is religious this is one of the biggest arguments that is brought up. Also, it does not lower the murder rates in the United States. The statistics do not drop even having this punishment, so people argue that it is not doing its job. These are just few of the arguments both sides provide in this topic.

People are looking at this now because it’s a hot topic. There are so many different perspectives that there isn’t really a solid answer if the death penalty should be abolished or not. Also since people are not really educated in this topic, when they start doing research they start seeing how important this topic is. There are few people that have been executed so you hardly hear about this topic, but when someone is executed it becomes the hot topic for a whole week or two. (527)