Argumentative Essay: Retribution And The Death Penalty

Retribution is the theory that the mandate to pay an offender back for his or her wrongdoing (pg. 6 Cullen). Conservatives lean in favor of this approach while liberals favor what is called “just deserts.” The difference between the two is that retribution is has the goal of ensuring that the offender endures the pain they have caused. Just desert want the offender to suffer no more than the pain caused. They wish to see that justice is served but not more than that which is truly deserved. One punishment that is considered retribution rather than rehabilitative is the death penalty. The argument that this punishment is more retribution is that the offender should suffer the same harm to which his or her inflicted on the victim. They see the
approach more as an eye for an eye when dealing with punishment. The problem which the other side argues is that you subject the offender to cruel and unusual punishment. When a person is sentenced to capital punishment there is no rehabilitation for the prisoner. Society has deemed them as bad as they come and not worth letting them live. Some argue that we shouldn’t play God and that it solves nothing to seek to take the persons life, which took your loved ones. These states are completely true in the fact that the sole reason to sentence someone to death is to seek revenge. There is no gain when sentencing someone to death except for that of the victim. Even with the death of the convict the action that had taken place will be there and the consequences for them won’t change.