The Death Penalty

The death penalty is an extremely controversial issue in America, with people almost split evenly one whether it should be continued to be enforced in the criminal justice system. With many varying ideological and societal factors, it is almost impossible to find a general consensus. When deciding if the death penalty should remain in the United States criminal justice system, I oppose its continuity due to its alarming costs, numerous errors in conviction, and its inefficiency to repel murder rates.

Although it may appear odd, it is a fact that usually sentencing a criminal to life imprisonment is less expensive then sentencing one to death. According to an article by Maria Waters "Facts About the Death Penalty", Waters states that in North Carolina the death penalty costs "$2.16 million over the cost of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment." The article also shows that "capital cases are 70% more expensive then comparable non-capital cases." Even though with life imprisonment the federal and state governments must feed, provide, and hire guards for the incarcerations of capital offenders, it is still less expensive than the long and often unsuccessful process of sentencing one to death. Because it is financially better to sentence on to life imprisonment, the general population and citizens of the U.S. would benefit at the end of the death penalty. The financial cost is not the only flaw with the death penalty; there are also numerous cases of convicting innocent people to death.

According to the same article Waters states that since 1973 "over 130 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence." This statistic demonstrates the numerous errors that have been made when prosecuting an innocent person to the death penalty. It can also suggest that because their have been such a large amount of people exonerated, there is probably a large amount of people who have been put to death who were truly innocent. Another factor to consider is the ineffectiveness of the death penalty lowering murder rates 

According to the article "Death Sentences Drop to Historic Lows" by Laura Sullivan, Sullivan states that in this year "murder rates fell to where it was in the 1960's." she continues to state that it is a large drop of murder rates from the 1990's "when the U.S. executed more inmates than in at least half a century."(Sullivan) With this, one can see how the death penalty has no affect on the murder rates at all, and may in fact have the opposite affect. Because it doesn't help to decrease the murder rate the usefulness of the death penalty is seems much less existent.  

Although it is true that criminals should receive equal punishments of the crimes they committed, the death penalty is a separate issue. Because there are no financial gains, or notable deterrents to committing murders linked with the death penalty, it is not profitable to enforce the death penalty. And because of the numerous errors of innocent people being convicted, the death penalty appears to do more harm than good.