Argumentative Essay On Capital Punishment

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Bakr Haltam Professor Win Neagle English 112 20 February, 2014 Capital punishment Our society is like a bed of flowers; when a harmful weed sprouts we eliminate it before it harms the rest. Criminals are the weeds, and if they are not taken care of, they will only grow in numbers and consume the rest of us. The death penalty has been a popular issue for many years. Thirty three states currently support the death penalty verses seventeen that do not (Death Penalty Information Center). There is a great deal of opposition towards capital punishment, and the most popular opposing arguments are that Capital punishment is unconstitutional, it is biased towards race and class, and many innocent people are wrongfully executed due to mistakes in the system. These arguments are false, and are cleverly constructed with the help of logical fallacy’s and rhetoric. Capital punishment should be adopted by all fifty states because it discourages crime, and is a great representation of justice, and a moral punishment. The death penalty greatly discourages citizens from committing crimes like murder. The greatest fear for many people is death. If they know that execution is a common consequence for their actions, they are going to think twice before committing them. Even in jails, the fear of death can deter an inmate already serving a life sentence from killing a guard or another inmate. When a potential murderer realizes that a murderer’s punishment is execution, then that person is discouraged from going through with the murder. The first studies were conducted in 1973 by Isaac Ehrlich linking executions to a lowered murder rate, and for every murderer executed a potential of three people were saved from murder (insert citation). A more modern... ... middle of paper ... ...at innocent people could wrongfully be executed. Since 1976 when the death penalty was reintroduced there have been no credible evidence of this happening. activists overestimate this when it actually it happens very rarely. That being said no justice system is 100% accurate, and in a system that relies on human testimony for proof mistakes are made. Striving for higher standards in death penalty cases should always be a priority no matter how efficient it becomes. However, the chance of mistakes are small, and there is no credible evidence that suggests any innocent people have been sentenced to death since the reintroduction of capital punishment. This does not mean that capital punishment should be abolished since there is still a chance of executing the wrong person, if society outlaws anything that has a potential of being harmful it would be a great handicap.

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