ANTI Death Penalty Argumentative Essay

ANTI-DEATH PENALTY ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY Introduction Death penalty is a type of punishment where it practices putting a person to death for committing a crime. Crimes punishable by death are murder, crimes against humanity, treason and more. Execution includes beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, and shooting in the back of the head by a firing squad. Some countries execute 18 years old below as long as a crime punishable by death has been committed. But before they are executed they are imprisoned known as “death row” unaware of when their time is up. Death penalty was once legal in the Philippines, it was at the time of the previous President Ferdinand Marcos in 1926 using an electric chair or ‘silya elektrika’ in the past. But later on in the year 2006 it was deemed to be too vicious and was disapproved by many and was banned but now President Rodrigo Duterte is bringing it back, and for what? Pro-death penalty would say that death penalty should be legalized so that criminals would get what they deserve and that no criminals would ever cross the road. But they are only looking at one side of the argument. There should be a few things to consider before agreeing to the death penalty such as the situation of the person. There must be a reason why that person decided to commit those crimes; being threatened to do so or wasn’t conscious about what he is doing and many more or they are just accused falsely. Putting someone into death penalty does not only punish the person however it also punishes their family and friends to loss someone they love, which is something they shouldn’t be facing as they did nothing wrong. Death penalty can kill the lives of innocent people and we cannot risk that. What if the person didn’t commit the crime but has poorly defended himself, he would end up dead. If death penalty is continued, we can’t protect the poor people. It is said that death penalty aims to stop the crimes but knowing that the person could be innocent and is in a place where he can’t prove his innocence defeats its purpose. If we pursue the death penalty, isn’t it us who commits the crime because we are killing innocent people? It only means that we too should be put up to death penalty, if ever death penalty is legalized. Death penalty is said to give criminals the punishment they deserve to give justice. But how about killing innocent people, don't they deserve justice too? Killing innocent lives bear great feeling of guilt and is said to make people depressed. Death penalty is irreversible, if we feel sorry for killing an innocent, we can't make anything change that, hence people gets depressed. Everyone that was related to the person being in the death penalty before or after only suffers. A former executioner stated that once they are involved they will suffer depression and guilt and destroyed their lives from drinking and using drugs to forget what they have done and to feel better for their own sake but even after taking drugs and drinking they can never forget the fact that they have killed more so if the person they have killed was an innocent person who did not have any money to defend himself towards the said crime. Most of the pro-death penalty said that feeding and providing health care for the prisoners were costly. But the truth is, the lethal injections and other equipments were more costly. The expenses includes the investigation up until the process. How about the “unsuccessful trials”? It will surely be added to the expenses. Some states that employing death penalty cost too much for it just to make sure that it is free from errors. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, almost all of the states implementing Death Penalty cost them an average of over $100 million every case. It was really experienced by other countries that, death penalty really need more time, effort and money. Why does the government not use their effort to provide a better and improved guidance and counseling to the accused instead of killing them? Even if a person is sinful, they still have the innate nature of being good. Or maybe why the government didn’t just improve their management, jails and their personnel? It will surely cost less rather than when Death Penalty is being sought. “Professors Richard Moran and Joseph Ellis estimated that the money it would take to implement the death penalty in New York for just five years would be enough to fund 250 additional police officers and build prisons for 6,000 inmates.” Here in our country, many people will not afford to fight for their cases. What if those people are innocent? How can they fight for their rights? “Everyone is innocent unless proven guilty”, according to a famous saying. But even when proven guilty to support death penalty is to take away an individual’s hope to repent and to change. As Pope John Paul II said, a sign of hope is the increasing recognition that hhte dignity f life ust never be taken away. God created human beings naturally good and according to His likeness, it's just the influence of our world that makes us do things against His will. God believes that everyone can change and everyone will change. Every individual deserves a second chance to learn from their mistakes. Death Penalty ends the process of healing for new and better person. We must support a person’s reformation and growth with a welcoming embrace to a new society, with them not forgetting their past deeds but to learn and accept it, open to develop as a reformed citizen with another chance given for them. Everyone misbehaves, everyone will do something wrong and yet it is known as part of growing up. When humans made a mistake, God didn't kill them. Instead He sent His only son to be a sign of hope to us humans that we can be forgiven and that we can change when we confess to Him our sins. Just imagine how God felt when His children made mistakes but still He decided to send His begotten son for us. Therefore, why kill people who did something wrong? Why can't we do the same as children of God, and forgive if proven guilty. As what have Pope John Paul II has remarked in the Evangelium Vitae, execution is not only the way to protect the society from criminals. Even if in the old testaments there are passages about taking someone’s life, still, the old and new testaments’ teachings was to “protect life, practice mercy and reject vengeance”. As per the teachings about Life in the Book of Genesis it says to us that everyone’s life is a precious gift from God. (Genesis 2:7; 21-23), all life should respected and protected. A reading from Genesis 4:15, "But the LORD said to him, 'Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.' Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him." Instead of ending Cain’s life when he killed Abel, God spared Cain’s life instead by putting a mark on him. We can also say that God's purpose had focused on preventing the never-ending cycle of revenge to which humans are prone. Religion is based on forgiveness and compassion in addition to that many religious people know that one of the Ten Commandments is “ thou shalt not kill”. It is a clear instruction given that we do not have the right to take away people’s life. If we were to put someone to death for killing people, then what makes us different from those criminals? No matter how iniquitous a person is, it does not give us the permission to make him lose his fundamental right to life. Pro-death penalty said that it deter crimes. Yet, it does not even have a credible proof. Scientific studies have failed to provide sufficient evidences to prove that death penalty does deter crimes. How can we make sure that death penalty stop crimes? There is no even a significant change in the rates of the cases in the United States where the death penalty is employed. It was stated that countries implementing death penalty and countries not implementing death penalty does not have any difference with crime cases or murder cases. One also stated that only a few murderers are caught and those murderers are self-destructive who likes to be executed. There is also another type of murderer who plans their murder avoiding the execution but if they want to get caught, they will set up an evidence where they would ‘purposely’ be caught. There are several ways to punish people who committed crimes, however is death really a way to punish criminals and stop their doing? It has never been proven that death penalty is the solution to stop all crimes. Nietzsche, a philosopher, wants us, when fighting monsters take care not to become one yourself. We can't blame the victim’s family for seeking revenge as justice. Of Course they would want to pursue death penalty so that the criminal would get what they deserve. But didn't they just committed a crime for killing the criminal? That is they too should undergo death penalty. Just like what Nietzsche said, be careful not to become one yourself. Instead of giving victims a healing, they settle more with punishment. “Revenge is not the answer. The answer lies in reducing violence, not causing more death.” As said by Marie Deans, whose mother-in-law was murdered. She said that death penalty won't relieve their suffering. So why couldn’t we just settle for the humane punishment? There is a law called reclusion perpetua which is lifetime imprisonment and basically similar to death penalty because the criminal is deprived from all his rights except the most basic one. It is very important to look at the other side of the argument and consider other punishments when it is more human and doesn't go against their right to live. Why do we have to go too far just so that they receive the right punishment when there are far other things much better punishment than death? Conclusion In conclusion, Death Penalty is an unfair punishment and should not be implemented here in the Philippines. It is not practical to legalize death penalty because it is not practical that our country should invest in time and money just to give the right punishment to criminals. It is more practical for the government to invest their time and money to adding more light to roads, upgrading security systems and improve rehabilitation centers so that criminals may change for the better. Death penalty is not necessary to our country. Knowing that there are other types of punishment and death penalty is just like any other punishment, why should we settle with a punishment that goes too far and deprives us of our right to live? If it is just like any other punishment, why should we settle with the inhumane punishment when there is a better and more human punishment, after all we are humans. Death penalty is not beneficial for our country. As discussed in our argumentative essay, a country that has legalized death penalty and a country that did not legalized death penalty doesn't have any differences amongst their crime cases recorded. There is also not enough evidence that death penalty make sures that it stops crimes from happening. Learning from that statement, wouldn't it be useless to legalize death penalty when there is no enough evidence that it does deter crimes? What if there are criminals who are not afraid of death, the purpose of death penalty has just been defeated because it is said that it discourages crimes when someone just committed. It will not surely bring any positive effect to the nation and to its people particularly, to the accused ones. With this, we do not support the implementation of Death Penalty.