FREE ESSAY ON DEATH PENALTY

DEATH PENALTY

Death Penalty: Target for Aggression
"An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind. - Mahatma Gandhi 
In modern civilization, there exists the concept of punishment for committing a crime.
This concept began with the earliest forms of civilization and has grown into a very
organized system. Under the well-known pretense of an eye for an eye methods used today
include electrocution, lethal injection, and the gas chamber. These methods and the
principles show the inhumanity of the death penalty. Upon examination, human beings must
abolish the death penalty because it is ethically wrong, kills innocent people, and does
not deter murder. 
Christianity and other religions provided the background for the lying down of laws in
this country. A direct correlation exists between the Ten Commandments found in the bible
and the Constitution of the United States. God's words in the bible, Thou shall not kill,
transcended into modern society making it illegal to commit murder. The death penalty
simply sends the wrong message to all. The practice contradicts its own ethics by trying
to justify the taking of a human life, after already condemning murder. The mindset of
those in favor of it is that killing a convicted murderer will in some way cancel out the
crime and heal the wounds of the living victims. The government in this manner confuses
the word justice with the word revenge. By using this method of punishment, the
government actually promotes revenge, which in turn condones the hateful crime of murder
in the minds of its people. 
Any innocent being easily sympathizes with another innocent being, and when the
government convicts one, the other feels that they suffer the injustice as well. Everyone
agrees that the death penalty holds the title for the ultimate punishment. 
Therefore, when the courts send an innocent human being to die, it should be known as the
greatest injustice done to a fellow human being. This would not occur as a problem if
courts demonstrated rational behavior, but evidence shows that they make fatal mistakes.
The government can free innocent men from prison, but they cannot restore the life of an
innocent man. The death penalty remains a fixed practice. Such a practice has no place in
a nation whose critical system makes such flaws. Excusing the execution of an innocent
human by a ruling differs in no way from excusing the murder of a citizen by a citizen.
Any such hopeless punishment after proof of one's innocence should stay abolished. 
Those in favor of capital punishment argue that the death penalty provides the strongest
deterrent to crime, because they regard death as the ultimate punishment. Research has
failed to provide that executions have a bigger control effect on homicide rates than
life imprisonment, in the States. At the same time, Canada, which has abolished the death
penalty, find no increase in their crime rate. The death penalty deters crime in no way.
Human beings must abolish the death penalty because it is ethically wrong, kills innocent
people, and does not deter murder. The Bible clearly states "Thou shall not kill," as
part of the Ten Commandments. It is inhumane to take revenge, people must learn to
forgive one another, and pray for one another. The death penalty cannot be reversed, once
done it cannot be taken back. In addition to that statement, everyone deserves a second
chance. Therefore, the death penalty should stay abolished.