Capital Punishment

Capital punishment by definition is the legally authorized killing of someone as punishment for a crime. Some argue why we need capital punishment, and there are four justifiable reasons for why our society should use the death penalty. These reasons are the principles of prison, cost of prison, safety, and appropriate punishment. The opposition to these would be whether or not it is fair, whether it is humane or not, the principles of prison, and if the convicted is truly responsible for the crime. Capital punishment should be allowed in our society if a citizen murders another citizen they should be sentenced to death because they have murdered someone which is the unlawful act of murdering one human being by another which is different from killing which is simply the act of causing death which can be easily justified as self defense.

Prison has three purposes in our society. The first is to separate criminals from society to keep it safe. The second is prison is a form of punishment and the third is rehabilitation. The first two principles are a given but the third principle of rehabilitation not so much because if the convicted criminal is sentenced to life in prison what is the point of rehabilitating them. Rehabilitation was set up for criminals who are going to be leaving prison. The opposition to this argument would be that isn't prison enough? It is a form of punishment but still why waste time and money on trying to rehabilitate someone who has been convicted to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Capital punishment is needed because these criminals are convicted to life in prison because they are murderers and they are dangerous. They are a threat to everyone they jeopardize the safety of the guards and even the safety of other inmates. And as unlikely as it sounds a dangerous criminal may escape prison threaten the safety of the general public. Although this seems like a minor reason that justifies capital punishment but it ties in with why we have prison in the first place which is to keep criminals separated from the public in order to keep the innocent safe.

The most important reason why our society should have capital punishment is that the cost to keep a life without parole prisoner is more expensive than a death penalty prisoner. The cost of a death penalty prisoner resides mostly in the cost of the appeal cases which are long and costly. Yet a life without parole prisoner cost more money for the state because the average cell cost according to Time magazine is twenty four thousand a year and the cost of a maximum security prison has a cell cost of seventy five thousand a year. While a prisoner on death row normally stays on death row for about six years which may soon become four years according to some anti death groups which is much cheaper than keeping a life without parole prisoner who will stay locked up for roughly forty to fifty years. If you begin to consider that there maybe more than one death row inmate in a single jail at a time adds to the cost but the same applies for life without parole inmates who are in jail much longer than a death row inmate. One may argue the cost of the chemicals themselves are expensive may or may not be true but it is still a lot cheaper to inject an inmate once than it is to keep that prisoner in jail for forty or fifty years.

Another argument against capital punishment is whether or not it is humane or not. While anti capital punishment groups believe that it is cruel and unusual punishment they do not understand that the processes for the death penalty is incredibly humane. Lethal injection uses Sodium Pentothal which is a rapid anesthetic which according to