Kairos On Capital Punishment

The argument that is receiving more attention is having capital punishment be abolished. To try to abolish the death penalty is not just something they want to do in the US only. An organization known, as the National Coalition To Abolish The Death Penalty (NCADP) is a group that strongly is against the death penalty. This organization mission is to abolish the death penalty in the US and have it abolished worldwide. In addition, a former president, Jimmy Carter is a political leader that disagrees with this type of punishment. Jimmy Carter explanation is one of my personal favorites of why we shouldn’t have the death penalty. He states,

[T]here has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent…It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty.”

For Jimmy Carter seeing no improvement in the crime rates with having the death penalty it is a waste. You can see from just these two examples, these are organization and politician leader that are making these comments. Both of these sources know the judicial system very well, so they know what they are talking about. In addition they are well known around the world and have many people that look up to them.

An argument that is receiving less attention is the alternative. The main alternative people consider is life without parole, but other than that alternative, can there be another one? The organization Oregonians For Alternatives To The Death Penalty (OADP), in their website they provide penal alternatives and preventive and restorative alternatives. For example, one of the alternatives is instead of having the death penalty is having life without parole. Sounds like the same thing, but for this alternative the prison, depending on how violent they were, will have the opportunity for parole after serving a minimum 30 years. If you think about it, this will be a better option because the type of crimes that led them to death row or even life in prison are done around the age of 20s-30s. This is still a young age, so after serving 30 years or even more they will have time to rehabilitate and obtain the goal to better themselves.

The only downside is that wealthy people usually are conservatives; tend to have some control on the government. Having this is a downside because conservatives’ people are majority of the time for death penalty. So those who do not have money, usually democratic, do not have that wealth so it is harder to abolish capital punishment. Money is huge in this debate because the cost of the death penalty is over 1 million dollars for just one person. People with a lot of money give to the campaign in their favor, that way the laws will go in their favor and they will make more money in the long run. Like the old saying goes “Money makes the world go round.” (504)