On March 16, Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murder of his pregnant wife Laci, and, according to a recent CBS news article, he is the 644th person to be placed on California’s death row.
The death penalty has been around for hundreds of years, and for the entire time, it has remained a controversial issue. This controversy has been based on ethics, mainly, but there are also questions as to whether the death penalty is even proven to be effective. Often, the death penalty has not proven to be any more effective than a life sentence in prison, as a criminal isn’t usually thinking about what kind of punishment they will receive for their actions or even whether they will be caught. According to a survey of the country’s top criminological societies, 84 percent of the experts believe that capital punishment is not a deterrent.
The death penalty is often looked upon as justified in cases of murder. Families of the victims may believe that the capital punishment of the murderer of their loved ones would somehow make things right, but it only brings about more wrongs. Is it really right, under any circumstance, to kill another human? What if the person executed was actually innocent? Is that a risk we, the general public, are willing to take? While giving an innocent person a life sentence isn’t a desirable option either, it is far better then killing someone who never committed any crime. While DNA testing has improved, the likelihood that innocent people aren’t going to get wrongfully accused, it is still risky business.
There is also some concern that the death penalty is not administered fairly. In many cases, defendants are at the mercy of being poorly represented due to a lack of funds and are unable to get a good lawyer. Studies have also shown that death sentences are more frequent when a white person is murdered than when a black person is the victim. Each county has its own criteria of what constitutes deserving a death penalty. Without consistency, it simply can’t be justified.
Capital punishment is not the answer, as it carries too many faults. While many are opposed to crowding our jails with criminals that they believe should rightfully be put to death, it truly is the only way to punish these criminals effectively and protect the rest of society without being unethical.
On March 16, a California judge sentenced Scott Peterson to receive a lethal injection. His entire trial has been smothered by the media, and a verdict such as this brings forth the controversy of the death penalty once more. There are many arguments both for and against capital punishment, and experts have broken down the issue into separate topics of discussion.
The most prominent and practical conflict over the death penalty is the debate of whether or not the threat of capital punishment actually deters crime. There have been countless studies on this topic. A 1973 analysis by Isaac Erlich produced results showing that for every criminal who was executed by the state, seven lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder.
Other studies have shown that states and countries that allow the death penalty have higher crime rates than those which don’t, but this fact is being twisted. Only the states with high enough murder rates would even bother with the effort to implement the death penalty; the death penalty does not create higher crime rates, instead the higher crime rates are the source of the death penalty.
It becomes necessary to take the life, not in retribution or vengeance, but to bring closure to the crime. By taking the life of the murderer, you create the ultimate deterrence-they simply can’t murder any more. Murder is the one crime that our government should put the most effort in trying to prevent. To do that, offenders deserve the harshest punishment we can provide. Any lesser punishment would undermine the value society places on protecting lives.
Robert Macy, district attorney of Oklahoma City, explains that sometimes a swift punishment that bypasses long waiting periods and countless appeals is necessary: “In 1991, a young mother was rendered helpless and made to watch as her baby was executed. The mother was then mutilated and killed. The killer should not lie in some prison with three meals day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die.”
Another concern is the possibility that we might execute an innocent among those who are actually guilty. Still, this is a small risk compared to the costs we pay if they are imprisoned for life. The California Department of Corrections sets the average yearly cost of maintaining one inmate at $30,929. Estimating that an individual’s life in prison would last about 30 years, that would cost the state one million dollars per inmate sentenced to life in prison. And although rare, the horrible possibility of a prisoner’s escape always exists.
Swift use of the death penalty would save costs from long, drawn-out appeal processes. Claims of innocence are usually just methods to delay the inevitable, as cases are very rarely overturned.
As John McAdams of the department of political science at Marquette University has said, “If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”