Research Paper on Death Penalty

The purpose of punishment is to stop a person from doing something or stop another person from doing something. As stated in "The Death Penalty Prevents Future Murders" by Death Penalty Information Center, University of Michigan, "capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else." People do not want to die. Death is the end of possibilities. In a report by DPIC, University of Michigan, Isaac Ehrlich demonstrated that for every executed inmate, 7 lives were spared because others people were deterred from committing murder. The fear of getting caught and killed can give them a chance to pause before acting in haste and calm down. To put it simply, the death penalty deters crime because people are likely to refrain from committing a crime when they fear the punishment. 

Those in favor of the death penalty believe it is the harshest punishment for the most immoral crimes. People consider the death penalty to be the most severe because it is the most unavoidable. Nevertheless, life without parole is unbearable because people have nothing and wish that someone would end their misery. Phillip Holloway's article "Time To Question The Sanity of The Death Penalty" states, "This point of view is not surprising when you look at the Supermax prison in Colorado, which some have described as a fate worse than death." He also mentions their lack of communication with the outside world to demonstrate his point. Perhaps that's true, but it's also possible that prisoners might escape. Since they have no hope of parole and are already in a high-security prison, there is no reason to refrain from infringing. If they get out, it is quixotic to expect that they would refrain from getting into trouble. The most likely outcome is that they would kill more people. There's no escaping the death penalty.

The US Constitution says "nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted," this is normally used as an argument against the death penalty. People argue that death is a cruel punishment and that is why it should be banned. In Philip Holloway’s article “Time To Question The Sanity of The Death Penalty” he mentions how a man named David Zink would rather die than have life in prison, his last words were, “'For those who remain on death row, understand that everyone is going to die. ... Statistically speaking, we have a much easier death than most, so I encourage you to embrace it and celebrate our true liberation before society figures it out and condemns us to life without parole and we too will die a lingering death.'” It is strange to think that someone would rather die but when you think about the facts it makes sense. Being in solitary confinement and losing connection with the rest of the world drives one-fifth to two-thirds of people to go insane or develop a form of mental illness. Isn't that crueler than just killing someone? Life without parole is presented as a better alternative than the death sentence because they are letting the culprit live, but they take all reasons to live. Getting killed gives the convict relief, it's better than living with no life.