Retributivism Argumentative Analysis

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1. I think converting their sentences would definitely help, especially regarding the 17 innocent people. You can always free someone if you find out that person didn’t do the crime, but if that person was executed it is final. However, I don’t think that being in prison for your entire life is better than getting the death penalty, because in both cases your life gets taken away from you. It might even be better for some people to have their life ended, since they don’t have to think about what they did for the rest of the time in prison.
Another point is that all the other injustices mentioned, like the prisoners mostly being poor, black, and possibly convicted in an unfair process, don’t go away by just changing their sentence.
Looking at the argument of deterrence, it doesn’t really matter if the prisoners are being held in prison for their entire life or executed in my mind. Either way, they won’t be able to commit another crime and I think both punishments are so strong that they could prevent other people from committing crimes. Considering retribution, the change in sentence is essential. In the retributivist …show more content…

One might say that it helps the families to come to terms with what happened if they know that the killer of their loved one got their fair punishment by dying too. They know that that person can never get out of prison anymore and hurt someone else. But, some families could maybe deal better with the situation if they talk with the murderer and forgive him. They could have the view that violence is not the right response to violence. For that part, I believe everyone has a different view on what would help them grief. Important is, that the affected family members feel that it is fair what happened to the convicted, so that they don’t have to suffer even

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