Jacobsen 1

Allison Jacobsen
Simone Suddreth
English 1010
22 November 2015
Abolish the Death Penalty
Death is considered the ultimate form of punishment, but living a life in prison without a
chance of parole can be a fate worse than death. Living your life inside a prison instead of living
it the way you would want. Thirty-one states and the federal government continue to allow the
death penalty. As of early 2015, 3,019 inmates awaited execution across the country (Kiener).
Capital punishment claims innocent lives, does not take into account mental illness, and is
completely unfair and biased. Taking away the life of the murderer does not solve the problem, it
adds to the violence in our society, and makes us no better than the murderer themselves. Killing
the murderer does not make the initial crime disappear, and does nothing to deter crime from
continuing. Since 1973, 140 people have been released from death rows throughout the country
due to evidence of their wrongful conviction (Amnesty). The chance of putting an innocent
person to death outweighs the justification of killing criminal. One in every 25 defendants
sentenced to death is likely innocent (American). Imagine putting 10 people on death row, 9 of
them guilty, and 1 of them innocent. Even though there are 9 people guilty, there is still 1 person
that is innocent that did nothing wrong and doesnt deserve to die. A 17 year old kid named,
Shareef Cousin, was wrongfully charged of a murder in 1995. He could not afford a proper
lawyer, so one was appointed to him. The appointed lawyer did not care about his case and was
not appropriate representation. The prosecuting lawyer lied to the judge about the witnesses

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claims. It took 4 years for him to be exonerated. (Cousin) The great majority of innocent
defendants who are convicted of capital murder in the United States are neither executed nor
exonerated. They are sentenced, or resentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten
(American).
Sentencing someone to death is not a quick process. It can take multiple years and many
appeals to even set a date of execution that usually gets pushed back multiple times. It is not easy
for the families of the victims. Some say that the death penalty allows them to be at ease
knowing that the killer of their loved one is dead. It is not a quick process and knowing that the
killer is behind bars for life would be far better than the years it takes to be put to death. The cost
of a trial of a death row inmate costs 20 times more than a trial for a life sentence. The media
blows everything out of proportion and can add to the time that it takes to sentence the inmate. It
costs less to keep an inmate in prison for life than it does to kill them.
There are people in this world that commit serious felonies, and feel no remorse. Those
people clearly have mental illnesses and should not be killed, but placed into a facility that can
help them. Time and time again, we have proven that the criminal justice system fails to protect
the innocent and persons with serious mental disabilities and illnesses from execution. (Capital)
The death penalty completely disregards mental illness (Amnesty). Providing more funding
into helping children and troubled youth, can drastically reduce the amount of felonies in the
United States. 80% of death row inmates have been in the criminal justice system before, and
were juveniles when they committed their crimes (Dow). Death shouldnt be the punishment for
someone that has been mentally ill their whole lives. The execution of someone that does not
understand the reason for, or the reality of their punishment violates the U.S. Constitution

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(Amnesty). If we put more time and effort into helping those in dysfunctional families, it will
allow us to diagnose mental illnesses sooner, and in turn prevent major felonies.
We could be intervening much more aggressively into dangerously
dysfunctional homes, and getting kids out of them before their moms pick up
butcher knives and threaten to kill them. If we're gonna do that, we need a place
to put them (Dow).
Providing schools and better education for troubled youth, especially those in the
juvenile justice system, allows them to be kept away from the wrong path. The path that could
possibly end with their death.
Capital punishment is completely biased and unfair. Almost all death row inmates could
not afford their own attorney at trial (Amnesty.) If they cannot afford adequate representation,
their chance of getting the death penalty increases tenfold. If that person is innocent, and they
arent given the correct representation, then they will be put to death for a crime they didnt
commit. Your race is also affected by whether you live or die. Since 1977, the overwhelming
majority of death row defendants, have been executed for killing white victims (Amnesty). The
location of your crime, local politics, and pure chance make it a lottery of who lives and who
dies. The main reason the United States brought back the death penalty in the 1970s was
because it was supposed to deter crime. The FBI data shows that the 14 states without capital
punishment in 2008 had homicide rates at or below the national rate (Amnesty). The death
penalty does not deter crime. Crime still happens and the punishment of death does nothing to
keep it from happening. The system of capital punishment is corrupt and allows for slim to no
chance of the felon receiving anything but a death sentence. Some believe that killing another

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does not give you the right to live. Take away a life and yours shall be taken. A life in prison
may seem better than death because of our criminal justice system. Prison is basically a hotel.
Free food, free clothes, and a place to sleep. Checking out of a hotel is easy, and has no hassle.
Checking out of prison, with a life sentence, is next to impossible. The criminal justice system
needs to focus more on making prison a place that no one ever wants to go. Make it so that
criminals shudder at the fact of spending their lives in an 8x6 concrete box. Living behind bars
doing the same routine every day for the rest of your life would be a fate worse than death. The
people that commit mass murders and shootings kill themselves before they can be captured by
police. 9 times out of 10 those people are mentally ill, but they understand that negative
consequences will follow. They dont want to live with the consequences of their actions, and
kill themselves so they dont have to be sent to prison.
The death penalty does not make us safer; we convict and execute wrongly, and we
spend precious resources on a system that doesnt work and never can (Lyon). Eliminating the
death penalty can protect the innocent, and allow us to reform the system in which we treat
criminals. Crime can never be abolished, but it can be dramatically reduced with starting early
and educating at risk youth. Imagine if we countered every felony with the exact same felony.
Violence with violence, rape with rape, killing with killing. Our society is so incapable of
understanding evil crimes that we turn to similar methods to combat them. Killing killers wont
bring back victims. Focusing our time and energy into education and treatment for mental
illnesses, will greatly reduce the crime rates. We arent living in the 1600s when we would
behead people for committing blasphemy. Our society is advanced enough to create boards that

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float on air, and yet we cant seem to understand that there are better ways to deter crime than
killing. Educating at-risk youth and protecting innocent lives.

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Works Cited
"Capital Punishment." American Civil Liberties Union.. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
Cousin, Shareef. "I Was 17, on Death Row -- and Innocent." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d.
Web. 22 Nov. 2015.Name, FirstName. Title of the Book Being Referenced. City Name:
Name of Publisher, Year. Type of Medium (e.g. Print)
Dow, David R. "Lessons from Death Row Inmates." Www.Ted.com. Ted, n.d. Web. 22 Nov.
2015.
Kiener, Robert. "Death Penalty." CQ Researcher 7 July 2015. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
Lyon, Andrea D.. Death Penalty : What's Keeping It Alive. Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 21 November 2015.
"U.S. Death Penalty Facts." Amnesty International USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015
Von Drehle, David. "Bungled Executions. Backlogged Courts. And Three More Reasons The
Modern Death Penalty Is A Failed Experiment. (Cover Story)." Time 185.21 (2015): 2633. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.
Zimring, Franklin E. The Contradictions Of American Capital Punishment. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Nov. 2015.