The Death Penalty: right or WRONG?!
"Two wrongs do not make a right." Many have heard this term before no doubt, and this is my leading quote on the death penalty. -Even if the first wrong included killing the innocent does not make it right to then take another persons life. Don't get me wrong i know people who kill deserve to suffer, however the criminal deserves the proper and appropriate punishment. Because noone deserves to die. That may be a sick way of thinking, feeling sorry for serial killers who murder innocent by-standers like the nextdoor neighbours daughter or the man in the street, But the alternative may be sicker then the death penalty.
To kill someone, to intentionally take a person or persons life can be punishable by death in many countries . In New-Zealand however you can go to jail-for life. Now isn't that worse? Doesn't the idea of sitting in an iron pen surrounded by other crazy inmates but always alone sound punishment enough? Cause that would be worse then death. To many however, the death penalty is the a good idea, its the just cause.
"If you kill, you should be killed." as my friend said.
But where would you draw the line? What age stops you from being killed if you take a life? How crazy do you have to be before its not your fault for killing? Or maybe the biggest flaw is, what if you get it wrong, and a person is sentenced to death who is innocent?
A strong example of this in New-Zealand is 'The Bain trail'.
Unless you've been living under a rock, many of you have heard about David Bain, a man who went to jail for 13 years for the murder of his entire family until he was then re-trialed last year and was found not guilty(wasn't found guilty or innocent but just not guilty) because there was not enough evidence to support the allegations. Whether he did it or not is not the point i'm making, Imagine if New-Zealand still had the death penalty and Mr David Bain was given the rope, and then 13 years later we discover it wasn't him at all, well our justice system have just wrongfully killed someone.
Another point about 'drawing the line' is that in some states in USA or countries around the world only use the death penalty if the 'person' has killed more then once. Well that is a little contradictory, why is one death not enough, what about that one person who lost there life,dont they deserve their killer to be killed too? Because these days you have to be a serial killer to be put to sleep.
The death penalty is all about revenge, so it made sense make in the middle ages when no one had a moral compass, noone cared about life and death, everything was much more simplier. But we are not Barbarians, if someone steals our fruit we do not get their heads chopped off, we have a justice system and it is now considered wrong to kill anyone and in some cases anything. So can't we in the 21st Century see that killing anyone is wrong, revenge is not the same anymore. Bombing the twin towers was wrong, But going into Iraq because the 'enemy' have weapons of mass destruction and destroying many innocent lives is not right either, Cause many of us can now agree that that war was a mistake. So why should the death penalty be any different? No matter how you choose to look at it, killing someone is still taking someones life whether they did it first.
That is just some things wrong with the death penalty but the reasoning i see is that 'what an easy way out'. I'm certainly not saying that dying isn't scary-well its the end of your life. However the murderer never gets the chance to regret, to feel the death and destruction of a family,which he or she has caused.Isn't that the worst kind of suffering not the physical but the mental no matter what you do you have that forever.
However many people believe that once you are crazy enough, and you are no longer thinking straight when you decide to murder that woman down the street because she ignored you or for whatever reason that people kill for.
But once you are crazy enough to do all that, you have left the 'yellow brick road' forever, there is no going back and no remorse and that is probably true or those who are truely psychotic
I however see that some killers (whether they felt remorse or not) would not want to be locked up like an animal. To spend the rest of their days being watched 24/7. Nothing to do but think. No where to be but alone. Wouldn't that be torture? The prisoner has killed someone and they have to live with it, so let them.
Because contrary to what some may think, there is something worse then death, there is a cage.
i liked reading your view, and i was totally for the death penalty until you mentioned the David Bain trail and that made me think "yea what if someone was killed and we found out later that they were innocent?".
ReplyDeleteThe only criticism i would give you is that you have a few spelling and grammatical errors that you might want to fix :)
thanks, yeah i got to fix that aye, draft most likely. Do you think its to opinionated? cause i know frank said not to use to much i and make it to personal. and i most definetly have.
ReplyDeleteBut that is exactly the point why they outlawed the death penalty in new zealand, so innocent people like David Bain weren't killed. I'm not sure if decaying behind bars would be worse than the death penalty, but at the same time to feed and clothe these prisoners it is coming out of regular citizens pockets and after a while these murderers would adapt to there settings, wouldn't they?
ReplyDeleteyeah they may adapt im sure which is what i did say, but at least they dont get to forget about there killings, and if they do. And im not murderer, i'd rather pay for them to be clothed etc then pay for them to be killed. A life is still a life, nomatter who they are.
ReplyDeleteinteresting topic. i really liked it. but i wanna stir a little bit so let me pose these topics to you.
ReplyDeletethe prisons here, in some cases are more decked out than some houses. and a lot of these killers are not left in solitary confinement. they are set amoung the other inmates. this hardly makes the whole 'being alone in a dark cold prison cell' a problem.
also, in nz the life penalty here is 30 years. thats not life. thats 30 years. i agree that hanging someone isnt always the best option, but neither is letting them go after 30 years when you promised a life penalty. how would you feel if someone came and murdered everyone you knew then got let go 30 years later to do it to someone else again? thats after spending 30 years with other people, in an airconditioned prison. yeah it has crap food. but seriously? some prisons nowerdays even have sky! flip. hardly sounds like punishment to me.
True i do see your point, and maybe they should make it a life sentence, but most of those 30 years are 30 years without probation, that does not then mean that they will be let out. And i am one of those people that doesnt believe in anything but people, some people can change. and if they dont then they just stay locked up.. And how do you know if someone hasn't murdered someone i know(i'm just saying),i still would rather they rot away alive and in jail, then rot away in the ground. My point i was making was that the death penalty is wrong,killing people is wrong, which is why murderers go to jail. I'm not saying our justice system is right in anyway, some of our rapist get outta jail quicker then our drug dealers and thats not right and our prisoners get better beds then some of us and thats not right either, but killing a murderer isnt gonna solve anything. And you go spend 30 years in prison and tell me that that 30 years was heaven and not a punishment?! Even with airconditioning, you are still locked up, you still are treated badly, and most importantly you are still not free. That being said,im not being mean to you and what you believe so thanks for stirring it up, and your points were quite thought through. :)
ReplyDeletea topic that many people disagree or agree on. the justice system, may not always work the way people want, and if a person was caught in an act of murder and is serving in prison, if released because he was innocent how can he make up for the years that were lossed because of false allegations. however in my personal opinion if someone had lost a loved one and found out who their killer was, im pretty sure they would want that person to die too. but again if given with a penalty death, should someone really die because of a unforgiven crime they committed? would this really bring justice to the family of the dead (loved one) and how would this affect the criminal's own family? i can't make up my mind about this one, but i enjoyed reading your blog! KUDOs!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading it. It's a sad topic Man,, Murderers deserve more than just ending up few years in prison or death. But before all this, people should get better educations and treatments. ;(
ReplyDelete