The death penalty puts innocent lives at risk
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Capital punishment has been a controversial topic for decades - an
action that some agree with whereas others disagree with. In Taranpreet Doad's
recent blog post, she argues that one should receive a capital punishment (death
penalty) for crimes such as, rape and murder. I personally do not agree with
the fact that Canada should have a capital punishment at all regardless of the
crime. I believe that having someone locked up and serve regular jail time for
such crimes is reasonable compared to execution.
Taranpreet had multiple
points/arguments that I do not agree with; She mentioned that having such a punishment
(death penalty) will prevent more rapes and murders from reoccurring. I
completely disagree with that because the number of
executions in the U.S have gone up and down throughout the years since 1977;
It did not “prevent” any more rapes and murders from happening, but has
increased the number instead in some of the years. According
to the same site, the number of innocent people who were executed is also huge –
since 1973, more than 155 people were released from the death row because they
were found innocent. But what about those who were executed as innocent people?
Having the death
penalty in Canada will be allowing innocent people to be executed, which is
morally wrong. There are many famous high-profile cases where the convicted
were proven innocent after years of facing jail time. For example, David Milgaard, a
Canadian was wrongfully convicted for the rape and murder of a nursing
assistant spent 23 years in prison. Ivan Henry is also one of
those who was wrongfully convicted on 10 counts of sexual assaults; he was
immediately given an indeterminate prison sentence and was declared a dangerous
offender. There are many more cases of wrongful convictions. If the death
penalty had existed at the time of these convictions, there would be more
innocent lives lost. Capital Punishment is not a good alternative to regular
jail time at all – it is instead an easy way out for the Criminals. The
punishment for the offenders should be something that will make them feel
guilty and make them realize what they did was wrong.
When serving jail time, they will have the opportunity to
better themselves whether their actions were due to mental illness or something
else. Also according to this news
article, it states that there is no indication that a family will get
closure through an execution. I completely agree with the statement; The anger,
grief, pain, etc, will all be the same regardless of the accused being alive or
not. In Taranpreet’s post, she stated “The fear of death would definitely
decrease the number of offenders”- I completely disagree with that statement.
Just because a Criminal decides to murder or rape does not mean that they are
scared to go to jail; if they were afraid of going to jail, they would not do
it in the first place. Therefore, the death penalty most likely will not “scare”
the offender, it actually may even lead them to hurting someone more if they do
not care about their life.
Although, Taranpreet had some valid points in her argument,
I do not agree with the fact that capital punishment should be the answer to
rape, murder, or any other offence. The death penalty puts innocent
lives at risk – it is morally reprehensible; a risk that cannot be taken.
Search Engine Optimization:
Using google trends, I found that the term 'death penalty' is used more compared to 'capital punishment' - the average for death penalty was 41, whereas, for capital punishment, it was 9 worldwide.
I like how you directly addressed each point of Taranpreet’s post. I agree with your sentiment that for many violent offenders, death is the easy way out. And like you pointed out, sometimes people are falsely convicted for heinous crimes, so obviously they don’t deserve to die.
ReplyDeletewell written and you had a good structure. I agree with your argument that death penalty shouldn't be enforced because what if people are judged to death penalty and after we realize that they were innocent and so forth. You had multiple examples of cases that were proven wrong and good sources.
ReplyDeletegreat argument and very well written. It was easy to read and follow along. I really enjoyed that you included two cases in which innocent people were wrongfully committed, i think this really shows how permanent death can be and that as humans we make mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI liked your idea very much and it is very well described, i really enjoyed it reading and moreover i got to know many things about this issue. And now i got so much interested that i will research more about it.
ReplyDeleteVery convincing. I think that your argument may have been strengthened by adding some per-capita stats with regards to the dissuading efficacy (and lack thereof) of the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteYou have a really great argument that supports the idea well.I thought this was a really good piece of writing which i actually enjoyed reading. Its great to see how you put those two cases showing how people get convicted of stuff they didn't even do. Plus it was a easy argument to follow.
ReplyDeleteYou have an interesting argument against capital punishment. I agree with your view point because justice systems do not always give right judgments and capital punishment would cause many innocent people to die. I also think that life time imprisonment is sufficient for severe crimes and that no one has the right to take someone's life
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