Essay on Capital Punishment

AP English 11
January 6, 2014
Capital punishment should be illegal because it sends the wrong message to the public.
Why execute people who murder to show killing is wrong? Society has to move beyond the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to progress. “ What is increasingly happening is a failure to distinguish between the interests of society and those of the immediate victims, then the whole purpose of a judicial system is being subverted” (Cohen). Capital punishment has many cons including that it is ineffective and unsure, financial cost, and the question of morality. Capital punishment is ineffective. Murder rate is still high even with the death penalty.
So capital punishment is ineffective (Cohen). Capital punishment is unsure, there is no certain way to tell if a person is a hundred percent guilty. An innocent person could be facing execution.
The support for capital punishment is not the same as it was years ago. Public support of the death penalty is eroding. The percent of people that favor capital punishment is slowly decreasing as the years pass. (“Intro to Capital Punishment”)
Financial cost is higher for capital punishment than life in prison. The judicial process that is needed for capital cases is much more extensive and expensive. The courts have to ensure that the person that is being tried is guilty. They don’t want to send an innocent person to be executed. For example it cost the state of Illinois $800 million more for executing people than for putting people in prison for life (Paul). The cost of the incarceration alone is $1 billion. It costs millions less for life in prison without parole, and it also ensures that the public is protected

while eliminating the risk of an irreversible mistake of taking someone’s life (“Life
Imprisonment”). Millions of dollars is also spent on just the defense of the suspect. The Timothy
McVeigh defense cost 13.8 million, for just 10 percent of that amount he could have been held in prison for the rest of his life (Paul).
The millions of dollars in savings could be spent on: education, roads, police officers and public safety programs, afterschool programs, drug and alcohol treatment, child abuse prevention programs, mental health services, and services for crime victims and their families.
There is always the question of whether capital punishment is morally wrong.
Is it immoral take the life of someone who has taken the life of someone else. It’s

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