Capital Punishment Is Wrong!

Capital punishment results in death by execution. It is legal in many states as a punishment for serious crimes, but that does not make it right. Capital punishment should be stopped because it is morally wrong, expensive, and such a slow process.

First of all, there is no moral basis for it. When we use the death penalty, we are following the criminals’ example by doing something equally as bad ourselves. We are taking one life for another life. There is also a chance that a mistake will be made, and the wrong person will be put to death. Is this type of revenge worth such a risk?

Another problem with capital punishment is the high cost. For example, the special prison housing is expensive to staff and keep up. States with the death penalty use taxes to pay these expenses. Over the past 13 years, Florida has spent $57 million to carry out 18 executions. If you divide this dollar amount by the number of executions, you come up with a cost of $3.2 million for each execution. That is a great deal of money.

In addition, using the death penalty is a very slow process. At least 97 percent of all death-row prisoners are not executed on time. As a result, the waiting list for executions grows year after year. If the U.S. legal system executed one inmate every day, it would still take 30 years to empty all of the cells on death row. A process this slow does not make sense.

In conclusion, capital punishment should be dropped from our legal system. People should see that it is morally wrong. If not, then common sense should tell them that it doesn’t work well since it is so expensive and such a slow process.