Why We Need To Kill The Death Penalty

Since 1976 there has been about 1,448 cases of executions involving the death penalty. In the United States, 31 states alone allow the death penalty. The death penalty is used to kill murderers so that they can not commit that crime again, and many people praise this. But why? There are so many other options out there for these sorts of criminal such as life without parole, that there is no need for the death penalty. There are those, however, who believe that putting someone on death row creates a safer environment for everyone, but keeping them locked up gives the same sense of security. The death penalty should not be an option for anyone because of the high cost, possibility of killing an innocent person, and a number of biases that can

In his article, “Here's Why We Need to Kill the Death Penalty”, Daylin Leach explains that in Maryland and California a “death penalty case costs between two and three million dollars” (Leach). This is about three times the cost of keeping a person in a prison cell for the rest of their lives. That money could be spent better elsewhere such as “more effective forms of crime reduction, education, or even tax cuts” (Leach). Get ahead of the crime by using the money elsewhere such as the examples Leach gives. If the money could be used to reduce crime, then there would be no people who would need the death penalty. Amanda Oliver points out in her article, “The Death Penalty has a Gender Bias”, that “the United States is one of only a small number of nations that continues to practice the death penalty” (Oliver). Other nations have already found better use for their money and so should our

Peggy Noonan argues in her article “They Should Have Killed Him” that the “planned taking of a human life is so serious… that there is only one price that is justly paid for it” (Noonan), but who gave the government “the power to decide when to kill its citizens in cold blood” (Leach). Whose job is it to decide the lives that are worth living and those that are not? “We’re very selective with the death penalty [because] only certain types qualify which stands the whole idea of equity and justice on its head” (Herbert). Noonan is trying to argue that the death penalty is the only price to pay for such a crime as murder because it is a very serious matter that has only one solution. However, the death penalty has been proven to have a racial bias (Herbert), a gender bias (Oliver), and record of convicting innocent people