Sunday, May 2, 2010

Capital Punishment: A Life for a Life

Brittany Liebenow

Capital Punishment Entry

2 May 2010

Capital Punishment: A Life for a Life

I support capital punishment, which is a horrible thing to say. Capital punishment is one of those topics that, like abortion ironically enough, you never ever bring up if you are sane. The reason that you never bring capital punishment up is that there is no clear-cut right answer. If you reject capital punishment, you could be asserting that a criminal’s life is worth more than a murdered person’s life. By taking away capital punishment as an option, you also decrease the punishment, and therefore severity, of serious offenses like murder. Of course, allowing capital punishment also allows for innocent people to be tried, convicted, and killed over crimes they did not commit. Let me make this very clear early on in my argument: I primarily agree with capital punishment for murder. Apparently the majority of law systems in the United States agree because, with few exceptions, first-degree murder is primarily what the death penalty is used for. The only other thing I think the death penalty should be an option for is rape, especially if it involves children.

I believe in the death penalty for murder because of our modern world. Convicted criminals have too much access to the outside world in some cases to be considered safe. With telephone, and now even Internet, access criminals have too much communication. Successful underground activity is now run from prison cells. While this is primarily associated with drugs, an effective murder could be committed by prisoners locked away in so-called secure jail cells. How is this possible? Prisoners have access to telephones, visitors, and e-mail. Even if this activity is monitored, criminals can, and have, talked in code to get someone else to do their dirty work for them. Whether it is managing the family drug business or getting rid of the key witness that put the criminal behind bars, criminals have the ability and access to this kind of power without physically lifting a finger. In situations such as these, it is better for the safety of society to have a person killed. If this person is convicted for murder especially, that person has already caused major harm to multiple people. An eye for an eye translates to a life for a life.

Corresponding with the eye for an eye mentality, I believe that convicted rapists should, under severe circumstances, be subjected to capital punishment. When someone is raped, in many sad cases, that person has his or her life taken away. Oftentimes rape victims cannot function again in the real world, and many fall into depression. In some cases, rape can lead to insanity. Keeping these horrific consequences in mind, it is justifiable to say that rape takes a person’s life away. Just as someone who physically murders someone should be subjected to the death penalty, someone who emotionally murders someone should also be subjected to the death penalty. Several states have already classified rape as a capital crime, allowing the use of capital punishment.

Rape also tends to be a very sexist crime. A majority of rapes are committed against women by men. In order for women to feel truly safe, the death penalty must be a protective barrier between potential rapists and potential victims.

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