Against the Death Penalty
By Ivonne Perez
October 10, 2014
Sociology 1
Capital Punishment is an issue that is constantly debated. I do not support Capital Punishment for many reasons. The death penalty is not a necessity, if it's so wrong for people to kill one another, why should the government be able to have somebody on the death penalty. For the worst crimes, life without parole is better, for many reasons. I’m against the death penalty not because of sympathy for criminals but because it doesn’t reduce crime, prolongs the anguish of families of murder victims, costs a whole lot more than life in prison, and, worst of all, risks executions of innocent people (Sharp 2014). Capital Punishment has been used as a form of punishment for many years. As of today, many people have been and still are wrongfully convicted. Many innocent people will be given the death penalty because of being wrongfully convicted. The death penalty is also an easy way out for most criminals. They rather choose the death penalty over life sentence, because they don’t want to live in prison for the rest of their lives. Also, the death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole. The taxpayers are wasting money on the death penalty that money can go to make more public safety resources.
Many people have been convicted of wrongful convictions. A major aspect of the debate over capital punishment has been social scientific research that seemed to show that capital punishment does not deter homicides says Rodney (2007:220). If this is so, many have argued, then we should not risk executing an innocent person or risk other possible negative consequences of capital punishment, since nothing is gained said Rodney (2007:220). Like in the case of Carlos DeLuna, he was executed in 1989 and later in 2006 they revealed that he was innocent. A Chicago Tribune investigation released in 2006 revealed groundbreaking evidence that Texas may have executed an innocent man in