Everyone can agree that taking a human life is a very serious issue. A majority of the American population today is against the execution of humans whom have committed crimes. In other words, many find the death penalty unethical to use. Therefore, their views of this form of retribution have evolved to “cruel” and “unusual”. In an article written by Phillip Holloway, he states that “it is hard to see capital punishment as particularly "cruel" or "unusual" when the victims will often have died much worse deaths than the killer will be subjected to” (Holloway, 1). Those against the death penalty have transitioned in favor of the rising popular punishment, life imprisonment without parole. Little do they know, life imprisonment without parole is not more ethical than the death penalty. The psychological impact of confinement, the growing and aging prison population, and wrongful means of deterrence demonstrate the problems involved with the increase of life imprisonment sentences. Regardless of these problems, there are conditions needed to be put into effect for a more efficient use of the death penalty. 

To start, executions are less penal because the psychological impact of confinement is more detrimental on criminals than being sentenced to death. In a report written by Craig Haney, he poses that, “the longer someone is incarcerated the more significant the nature of the institutional transformation” (Haney, I). The longer that a prisoner is confined, the more he/she conforms to prison norms that are required in order to survive (Haney, I). Inmates are forced to give up their freedom to make self-decisions and have to learn the boundaries in which they are limited to. (Haney, II, A). Due to these limitations, convicts find themselves incapable of doing things independently nor how to control themselves from performing harmful actions (Haney, II, A). Vulnerability is the enemy of emotions in prison, therefore inmates suppress these feelings to prevent risk of exploitation (Haney, II, C). Another defense mechanism from showing weakness is social isolation. This tactic however sets inmates into a depression-like state where they “retreat deeply into themselves, trust virtually no one, and adjust to prison stress by leading isolated lives of quiet desperation” (Haney, II, D). Those sentenced to “Supermax” prison are deeply hit with social isolation because they “typically spend 23 hours locked in their cells with little to no communication with other inmates” (Holloway, 1). Also, many prisoners lose a sense of “self-worth”. In Holloway’s article, a former inmate on death row David Zink states, “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” (Holloway, 1). Because of how awful prison life is and criminals would rather be given a sentence to die than have to spend decades incarcerated. Prisoners also sometimes commit suicide to liberate themselves from the torturous prison life. Similarly, other inmates hear about crimes committed by people, and they too show dislike towards some of the extreme cases. Therefore, the other prisoners will kill the criminal who committed such a severe act instead of welcoming them like equals. The degree to which a person is effected with these previously mentioned psychological symptoms is dependent on the length of his/her institutionalized period. For those imprisoned for life, the psychological effects of incarceration are inevitably going to take a toll on these inmates. 

The United States today houses a large number of prisoners, all serving various length sentences; this number is continually rising. Craig Haney mentions, “by the start of the 1990s, the United States incarcerated more persons per capita than any other nation in the modern world, and it has retained that dubious distinction for nearly every year since” (Haney, I). Overall, the United States is home to the largest prison population which is 25 percent of the world’s prison population (Appleton and Grover, 611). This large population of prisoners is causing prisons to overflow. Not only is the general prison population rising, but the overall age of said population. Catherine Appleton and Bent Grover discuss that, “as a result of an increase in LWOP sentences, the United States now houses a large number of elderly and infirm prisoners” (Appleton and Grover, 604). Because there has been a rapid increase in the number of criminals sentenced to life imprisonment, the age of people still in prison is increasing. These elder prisoners must be sent to special facilities where they can receive the medical and geriatric care that is necessary at that age (Appleton and Grover, 604). However, this brings to question that if these prisoners are in need of such care, then how much of a threat are they to public safety at this age? Clearly they are minimal to no threat and should not have to be kept within the criminal justice system which in fact is not cheap to keep them in (Appleton and Grover, 604). On the other hand, at the beginning of the sentence, some prisoners are viewed as “super inmates” in which they have no hope of being released since they are sentenced for life and therefore become uncontrollable (Appleton and Grover, 604). The overwhelming growth and increasing age of the prison population show how insufficient life sentences are. 

In addition, because this punishment is becoming more popular, there is a lower deterrence level than that of the death penalty. As previously mentioned, with “super inmates” it is not certain that there will be “compliance and cooperation” from these inmates since they have nothing to lose. On a different note, a punishment can provide deterrence without having to be at the same level of severity as the crime (Gerstein, 77). For example, in Michael Davis’s article he argues, “certainly, death by lethal injection does not shock most of us in the way even fifty lashes with a whip does” (Davis, 25). Torture seems to be a more inhumane form of punishment than the death penalty. Likewise, life imprisonment without parole is a form of torture which, in turn, is more inhumane than being sentenced to death. Despite capital punishment being an extremely serious punishment, the criminals are still treated with human rights and respect. On top of all of this, it has already been stated that most criminals still would rather be executed than placed behind bars for the rest of their lives (Appleton and Grover, 607). Some would argue that a criminal deserves a punishment equally as worse as the crime, while others argue that no matter how awful a crime, no one deserves to be put to death. In Trevor McDonald’s first hand interview with those on Death Row, those inmates themselves know that they deserve to be there and have accepted their punishment. With this information, it would seem obvious that life imprisonment would have a higher level of deterrence than the death penalty. However, life imprisonment is proven to be a harsher punishment than death (Appleton and Grover, 607) while also being considered a cruel and unusual punishment. By definition, given by Robert S. Gerstein, cruel and unusual punishments “treat members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded” (Gerstein, 78). These criminals are deterred by life imprisonment due to the fact that it is torture and shows no natural rights. Considering the psychological effect of incarceration, the uncontrolled growth in the prison population, and the unethical deterrence of life imprisonment without parole, it is clear that this form of punishment is more torturous and unethical than the death penalty. 

The economic side of this issue is a negative factor for both life imprisonment without parole, and capital punishment. Neither forms of punishment within the criminal justice system are cheap. For life imprisonment, housing people for life is a great expense. Appleton and Grover suggested that, “assuming that a typical life-sentence offender is sentenced at the age of 30 and lives until 70, conservative estimates in the United States suggest that the total cost for such a prisoner would be at least one million dollars” (Appleton and Grover, 611). On the other hand, death penalty court cases cost more than those for life imprisonment without parole (Appleton and Grover, 611). The reason for death penalty cases costing more than life imprisonment cases is due to the many more trials that are conducted and the agencies needed for such. All the “judges, prosecutors, public defenders, court reporters, jurors, bailiffs and courtroom staff” needed for each trial must be paid for (Holloway, 1). On the contrary, now with the aging prison population, more money will be spent on those facilities and their medical care. A lot, if not all, of the money used to house these inmates come from society’s taxpayer dollars. This money could have been spent more wisely on a more sufficient punishment. Although the process of execution costs more, down the line it costs more to keep these inmates alive and in prisons.  

Despite all of the more ethical reasons that come from using the death penalty over life imprisonment, there are still a few issues with the death penalty that need to be resolved. One of these issues is setting a general definition for what “evil” is and what constitutes as being a case where the death penalty is an acceptable form of punishment. William Edmundson acknowledges the disproportionality of the application of capital punishment in his article. He informs readers that, “the badness of death is philosophically controversial, and it may after all not be the right aspect of death to consult for purposes of determining whether the death penalty violates a principle of proportionality in punishing” (Edmundson, 41). Edmundson and other philosophers whom have done research in this area suggest a list, in order of “badness”, to express which crimes are deserving of the death penalty as an ethical form of punishment (Edmundson, 42). At the same time, a majority of people can agree, in the most heinous situations, that the death penalty is acceptable. Kyle Gibson states that 70% of Americans were in favor of putting Boston Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to death. The problem with the application of capital punishment is the confusion of what evil is. Peter Brian Barry compares two theories for the response needed towards evil. The theories were “if capital punishment is ever morally justified it is justified as a punishment for the morally worst offenses—that is, evil crimes or criminals” (Barry, 247). After putting together all the research, it was found that the death penalty is permissible as a response to evil people. Society believes that evil people are rare and categorize the term “evil” with the most monstrous such as Adolf Hitler (Barry, 262). However, evil people are more common than projected, but less common than an evil act. Immoral acts completed by evil people deserve to be put to death, not for what they have done but the type of person that they are. With this, the establishment a system that explains under what characteristics does a criminal deserve to be sentenced to the death penalty is necessary (Barry, 263). This way, it can be assured that it is not only for their actions that a person is deserving the harshest of punishments, but due to the understanding that he/she is still considered evil after the crime was committed (Barry, 263). 

Following this idea, if a death sentence is determined based off the character of the person, this will in turn save many innocent lives. Sad to say, innocent people still end up on death row and are wrongfully accused of horrible crimes. Phillip Holloway claims that “more than 4 percent of inmates sentenced to death in the United States are probably innocent”. If the assessment of punishment were to be fixed and determined based off the person more so than the crime, then people would be evaluated based off character post-crime, and decrease the amount of innocent people convicted. The suspect must be determined 100% guilty before proceeding with a sentence to put an end to innocent people having to spend years of their lives on death row.  There have been 154 verified death row exonerations since 1973, one of which being a man named Henry McCollum (Holloway, 5). McCollum was released in 2014 after having spent 30 years on death row for a crime that he did not commit (Holloway, 5). The other way that the death penalty, with these alterations, can assure innocent lives are saved is through the enhanced application of capital punishment. As each execution is commenced, there has been seen a 2.5 murder decrease per execution in Texas (Muhlhausen, 1). David Muhlhausen mentions that “federal, state, and local officials must continually ensure that its implementation rigorously upholds constitutional protections, such as due process and equal protection of the law” (Muhlhausen, 1). There needs to be an alteration in the judicial system to guarantee that the death penalty shall be used as an ethical punishment. If innocent men and women are being accused of crimes worthy of the death penalty, then there must be order to ensure there is an end to these false accusations. However, when this altered system is placed into practice, there will be a protection of innocent people from mistaken sentences and will save innocent lives with every true execution that occurs. 

The death penalty is overlooked as a punishment that could be considered ethical because a person is being executed for their crime. Looking at the evidence, life imprisonment without parole is seen as more psychologically damaging to the criminals. They prefer to be placed on death row than to be placed in captivity for decades with no hope of ever being released. Due to the rise in abolitionists of the death penalty, there has been a rise in life sentences. This is leading to an overcrowded and aging prison population. A portion of life sentenced inmates are becoming uncontrollable for they are aware that their lives end in prison one day or the next. Although the inmates are more deterred by the punishment of life imprisonment, this shows exactly how it is not “equal” to the death penalty, but actually quite worse. On top of these things, despite death penalty trials being more expensive than those for life imprisonment, the continuation to house such a large number of inmates adds up financially. And, with the aging prison population, society must not only pay for every inmate to stay alive, but for the elder to receive appropriate medical and health care. Regardless of these arguments, there are flaws to the practice of capital punishment that must be fixed. An even application of death penalty sentences, based off the character of criminals, is necessary for innocent lives to be protected from false executions. The number of abolitionists towards the death penalty may be growing and well-funded, but public support remains high (Gibson, 1). Those in opposition of the death penalty are oblivious with belief that life imprisonment is ethical. They are in need of education with this evidence proving otherwise. There are high hopes for this necessary decline in life imprisonment sentences. Life imprisonment without parole does not get rid of evil; it merely preserves it. 
