Essay against capital punishment. Stop it in America don't start it again in England.

Essay by steph998Junior High, 8th gradeB+, February 2003

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Against Capital Punishment

Most people would say that the punishment should fit the crime, but can anyone really justify murdering someone simply because they deserved it?

The main argument for capital punishment is that it puts people off committing murder. There have been many studies attempting to prove this but no one has managed to prove that capital punishment deters murderers more that a long jail sentence does. In fact in the USA most states without the death penalty have less murders than states with the death penalty. People believe that this is because capital punishment promotes violence as a way of dealing with anger. Also capital punishment is usually only used for planned murders and the people who commit these murders generally think that it is impossible for them to be caught. This makes any deterrence ineffective.

People also say that killing a murderer is the best form of revenge for the murder victim's family.

In reality a life sentence would be worse for a convict because they could never get away from what they had done. Killing a murderer hurts his family in the same way as the same way as the murderer hurt the victim's family, and I don't think there are many people who would want to put an innocent person through that pain. Killing a murderer will not bring back his victim.

I don't think there is any point in capital punishment because giving someone a life sentence is much less hassle and it is less expensive. Murder trials that involve capital punishment cost up to 2 million dollars more than normal murder trials. This is because the trial has to take so long. Each execution takes about 10 years and costs American taxpayers 3.2 million dollars. In the last 5 years over 300 people...