Crime and Punishment: Capital Punishment

Crime and Punishment: Capital Punishment

Crime and Punishment: Capital Punishment
Justice; it only has one meaning, yet every single person has a different definition of the word. Some say Justice is an eye for an eye; some say justice is simply a form of punishment for a crime. Which is right? Which is wrong? If someone kills someone, should he or she be killed as well, or just punished for the crime committed? For years, the death penalty has been a heavily debated issue. Is it cruel and unusual? Or is it a fair punishment to heinous crimes? Under certain circumstances, the death penalty is the most just punishment there is.
Many people say capital punishment should be abolished because it makes us no better than the criminals we put to rest. While this is a valid point, the mass majority of people who say this, have never had a family member brutally taken from them. Imagine that you have one daughter. What if on her 9th birthday, she was kidnapped, raped, and murdered? Can you honestly say in your heart that you would want the perpetrator to live? Hell no. Watching him die wouldn’t be enough.
The death penalty also eliminates the possibility of the criminal committing another crime. Even if a criminal is sentenced to life in prison without parole, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is going to be in jail forever. In New York, 1962, a 14-year old girl was raped and strangled to death. The girl’s parents, feeling self-righteous, could have sentenced the convicted to death, but instead chose for him to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Twenty years later, due to a change in sentencing laws, the convicted felon was set free. The young girl’s parents curse themselves everyday for letting this man live long enough to have freedom once again. In 1968, Kenneth McDuff was convicted of raping and strangling a 16-year old girl and shooting two of her male friends. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was converted to life in prison in 1972, when...

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