Compare And Contrast Death Sentence And The Death Penalty

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I believe that life sentences not only do nothing to fix the problem of wrong doing, but are also taxing on our economy. For my research paper I will be examining the financial burden that is created by incarcerated persons in the United States. I recently read somewhere that with the amount our government/taxpayers spend to keep an individual imprisoned for 10 years, that same amount of money could put them through a four-year college--earning them a college degree. Now, whether there is any truth in this or not is to be discovered in my paper. But, if I do find this to be truthful, I believe people would be appalled to learn how much of their money is being spent yearly to keep criminals locked away. Now, I am not taking a stance on the …show more content…

pro death sentence just yet, because I do not want my bias to get in the way of my research. However, if my findings support my thesis, I do believe it will be hard to ignore the fact our tax dollars are being …show more content…

From there I will (or could) go in two directions. First, I will apply these monetary findings to the individual cases from the documentary. Since this film is already a comparison of life sentences vs. the death penalty, it will provide a natural transition into other comparisons such as cost in both cases. Additionally, I will look at the number of incarcerated persons who enter our system annually. This will provide a nice contrast to my last point, because it will enable the reader to see more of a macro monetary effect rather than just two individuals’ cases. As a part of my argument I will also be bringing up how our current system is broken in the sense that it does nothing to actively help and correct the behaviors of those imprisoned. I can see how people might reason through the idea of paying for those to remain imprisoned if there were some corrective actions in place. However, seeing as the quality of life for most with life sentences is rather pointless or depressing, I that train of thought and reasoning will be disproved and lost. Michael J. Perry, an individual serving a life sentence, said it best in the film “Into the Abyss,” “I just feel like I’ve been beaten

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