The Death Penalty

The death penalty or capital punishment is something that has been around since the 1800’s when guillotines were used. Those have long since been thought of as inhumane but yet the death penalty isn't.

I did my final project in my english class last year on the death penalty, I had initially went into it supporting it but after 30 minutes of research I realized that there should no longer be a death penalty.

The first reason for this is that there is no real advantage to having a death penalty. In the past 40 years southern states have executed 1,184 people whereas the northeast executed four. Yet the 2015 homicide figures in the south were 70% higher than the northeast, (The Death Penalty Information Center). This flat out shows that you can not say the death penalty helps public safety when the southern states execute the most people and continue to have the highest homicide rates.

Another very strong reason is wrongful incarcerations, more than 170 death row inmates have been exonerated since 1973, (The Death Penalty Information Center). This does not account for those who are proven innocent after their execution. It should be quite obvious that if you can't prove with 100% certainty that somebody is guilty than you cannot in your right mind think it is okay to sentence people to death.

Finally there is a huge factor regarding race when it comes to the death penalty. As of october 2002 12 white people were executed where the victim was black but 178 people of color have been executed where the victim was white. Not to mention that people of color makeup 13.4% of the american population but 43% of total execution and 55% of people awaiting execution, (American CIvil Liberties Union). This can easily show that people of color are far more likely to be sentenced to death than any other race and that is something that cannot be ignored.

All of the evidence shown is enough to convince me that there is no good way to support the death penalty, there are just too many variables to be able to condemn someone to death.

Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. “Death Penalty Should Be Abolished.” Link to LushUSA Website, Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, 26 Nov. 2020, www.lushusa.com/stories/article_the-death-penalty-should-be-abolished.html.

“Innocence.” Death Penalty Information Center, 18 Feb. 2021, deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence.

“Race and the Death Penalty.” American Civil Liberties Union, www.aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty.