The Death Penalty
In an article by Amnesty International's Campaign on the United States of America, the author states, "More than 100 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The USA by contrast has increased its rate of executions and the number of crimes punishable by death. At this time 38 states currently have the death penalty on their statute books". The article goes on to claim, "The application of the death penalty is not only in-humane but racist. Black and white people are the victims of violent crime in roughly equal numbers, yet 82% of people executed since 1977 have been convicted of killing white victims". The following statistics would disprove this theory, however. During 1998 68 people in 18 states were executed - 20 in Texas; 13 in Virginia; 7 in South Carolina; 4 in Arizona, Florida, and Oklahoma; 3 each in Missouri and North Carolina; and 1 each in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and Washingt!on. Sixty-six of those executed were men and two were woman. Of those statistics; 48 were white, 18 were African American, 1 was American Indian and 1 was Asian. Of persons under sentence of
------------------------------------------------------------------------ tion, thereby reinforcing the deterrent that prevents the crime. As to the humanitarians pleading the unjust and wanton disregard for human rights in the prison system, I would gladly give any prisoner here the option to remove themselves to South America or a Middle Eastern prison for an extended stay in one of their prisons. A prisoner has no rights. Those rights were forfeit the moment the crime was committed, or if not then, after a judge and jury decided it was so. The laws are to protect the rights of the people who obey them, not to protect anyone with a flagrant disregard for those rights. "Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Eccl. 8:11). We must first address the oppositions reasoning against the death penalty. I do not fully understand the assorted arguments claiming that the death penalty is inconsistent with human dignity or that, somehow, society has no right to impose it. One could claim that death is something we all face sooner or later, be it an illness or the process of time, but that death by execution must be avoided by simply not killing someone else, by not committing murder. Death by execution is humiliating and painful, yet is it not meant to be? Churches proclaim that no matter the presumed justification or authorization by individual states, killing is a mortal sin. Thou Shalt Not Kill. If we as a common people cast our vote to end someone's life, even though we do not ourselves physically commit the act, are we not guilty of crime by association. We voted to carry out the death, we voted for the laws regulating the process of death by execution, and we placed the legislators in the offic! Capital punishment is to society just as self-defense is to the individual. If your life is threatened, you have the right to defend yourself with deadly force if necessary. Society, like the individual also has that right to defend itself with the same deadly force. By allowing a murder to have the possibility of committing the crime again, society has ceased to defend itself. The ratio of innocent lives saved per execution justifies the means, e.g., executing five of the most dangerous convicts will result
Some common words found in the essay are:
Shalt Kill, American Indian, God Gen, Middle Eastern, Den Haag, United America, death penalty, Washingt Sixty-six, African American, death execution, sentence death, capital punishment, crime society, Florida Oklahoma, North Carolina, punishment fit crime, society impose, god ordained, innocent lives, claim death, process death, life sentence prison, process death execution,
Approximate Word count = 1571
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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