arguments can be made in favor and against it. It ultimately, however, comes down to

personal beliefs and opinions. Personally, I feel that the death penalty is a very serious

punishment, and should be used very carefully and sparingly. The death penalty is

unremediable. What is done can't be corrected. This aspect of the sentence plays a heavy

part in my opinion. The death penalty also is more costly than life imprisonment, and has

not been found to be a greatly effective deterrent.

Florida, as one example, calculated that each execution there costs some $3.18

million. If incarceration is estimated to cost the state $17000/year, a comparable statistic

for life in prison of 40 years would be $680,000.(Harries and Cheatwood). Figures from

the General Accounting Office are close to these results. Total annual costs for all U.S.

Prisons, State and Federal, was $17.7 billion in 1994 along with a total prison population,

non-death row, of 1.1 million inmates. That a

Mistakes can be and have been made. This mistake is not remediable. Retributive

violence in society instead of diminishing it. Empirical studies indicate that it has no effect

80% of American adults say that they want to retain capital punishment. Numbers vary

innocent human life. United States Supreme Court decisions of the 1990's (Coleman v.

The death penalty will continue to be one of the most heated topics of debate for

From this; the cost of keeping a 25-year-old inmate for 50 years at present amounts to

the search for quick and easy answers to complex human problems. We are losing our

social problems-millions of abortions to address problem pregnancies, advocacy of

Some common words found in the essay are:
Herrara Collins, , United Consequentialist, Prisons Federal, death penalty, Accounting Office, Supreme Court, human life, capital punishment, risk executing innocent, risk executing, executing innocent, life prison, innocent persons,
Approximate Word count = 721
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)