Consider this true story- In July of 1998, Earl Ringo Jr. and a friend constructed a plan to rob a restaurant.  These two men followed the manager and delivery truck driver into the restaurant, where Ringo murdered the driver and then robbed the manager of $1,400.  Ringo then told his accomplice to murder the manager.  Earl Ringo Jr. was found guilty by a jury of two first-degree murders (Muhlhausen).  What punishment does Ringo deserve to receive for these horrible crimes?  Should the death penalty be the top option for Ringo?  Every offender that commits a crime deserves to be punished based on the actions he/she has chosen to do and murder is known as the highest violation against our justice system.  For decades, the death penalty has been very controversial in America, and people have debated whether it should be used as a form of punishment or not.  Many people think that the death penalty is unconstitutional and violates certain amendments but others think that it is a necessary punishment for the most heinous of criminals.  The death penalty can be very effective in many ways but it also has its flaws.  The death penalty should not be abolished in the United States because it’s an effective form of punishment, it reduces capacity congestion in prisons, and it is an effective deterrent of crime.  

The death penalty, formally known as capital punishment, is defined as a practice whereby a person is put to death as a form of punishment for crime.  The first acts of the death penalty date back to eighteenth century BC.  Great Britain brought their practices of capital punishment into the colonies when they first settled the land.  The first known execution in the colonies was in 1608, when Captain George Kendall was put to death after discovering he was a spy for Spain.  Each colony varied in their form of the death penalty.  The first known reform in the U.S. was when Thomas Jefferson presented a bill in Virginia stating that capital punishment should only be used for murder and treason, but the bill was defeated.  Throughout the early-mid twentieth century, the number of executions decreased every decade except in 1930s where it had the highest rate of executions in American history (Part I).  

Complications with the death penalty always existed but the biggest push for abolishing it completely came in the 1960s.  Capital punishment was seen as “cruel and unusual” punishment which would therefore make the eighth amendment unconstitutional.  In the case of Furman v. Georgia, Furman argued his sentencing was a violation of the eighth amendment.  “The supreme court ruled that a punishment would be “cruel and unusual” if the punishment was too harsh for the crime, if it was arbitrary, if it offended society’s justice, or if it was not more effective than a less harsh penalty” (Part I).  In a vote of 5 to 4, the jury ruled that it violated the eighth amendment thus leading to the voiding of many other death penalty statutes.  Therefore, the death penalty was suspended because existing death penalty statutes were no longer lawful (Part I).  

The decision in the Furman case allowed states to write their own death penalty statutes.  A total of 37 states rewrote their death penalty statutes.  Some states made sentencing guidelines for the court when deciding on whether to enforce the death penalty.  In the case of Gregg v. Georgia, the court approved directed decision statutes thus deeming the death penalty constitutional in certain states.  Also, the court ruled that capital punishment was constitutional under the eighth amendment.  The death penalty has been pushed for centuries to be abolished in the United States.  From Thomas Jefferson attempting to pass a bill, to the decisions of Furman resulting in the suspension the death penalty, to the court ruling of Gregg reinstating the death penalty, this country may never come to an agreement but on abolishing the death penalty all together (Part I). 

There is a reason the death penalty has been used for thousands and thousands of years, it’s an effective form of punishment.  One story tells us that an 88-year-old World War II veteran was on his way to play a game of pool when he was attacked and beaten to death by two teenage boys.  No one knows the reason.  Another story tells us that a college baseball player was murdered in Oklahoma by three strangers for reasons unknown.  What do you do to the monsters that are responsible for these murders?  The death penalty.  Derek Hunter stated, “No executed criminal has ever harmed another innocent human being.”  These humans that committed the most terrible of crimes deserve to have the same done to them.  If they do have the same done to them, then they will never have a chance to inflict their psychotic ways on society again.  America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, so many people follow the Bible which tells us in Exodus 21:23-25, “But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”  This can be known as the law of retaliation.  Whatever horrible crime a person commits, should be returned in favor back to that person.  “[T]he death penalty is the greatest equalizer of justice for society’s great monsters” (Hunter).  Capital punishment is a way to bring justice to society and equal out the murder of the criminal with the execution of him/herself.

Capital punishment isn’t just an effective form of punishment in the law of retaliation but in an emotional standpoint also.  The friends and families of the victims need retribution.  Retribution is the only thing that is even remotely close to bringing closure for the family and friends of the victim.  “Only the taking of the murderer's life restores the balance and allows society to show convincingly that murder is an intolerable crime which will be punished in kind” (Retribution).  Retribution might not bring complete closure to the closest members of the victims, but it will make them feel better knowing that the killer of their beloved friend and family member is now executed and can no longer bring his/her heinous crimes onto anyone else.  In 1991, the District Attorney of Oklahoma City explained “The killer should not lie in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die’” (Retribution).  The only thing that can bring the family members back to emotional stability about the suffering over the loss of their beloved, is retribution, which makes the death penalty an effective form of punishment.  

Not only is the death penalty a very effective form of punishment, but it reduces overfilling in prisons and jail.  According to the International Center for Prison Studies, the United States has 2.3 million people in prison (Liptalk).  That number is high enough to be number one in the world.  China comes in second with 1.6 million inmates despite having four times the amount of people in their country versus the United States.  Breaking that number down even further, the U.S. has 751 people in correctional facilities for every 100,000 people which is equivalent to about one out of every hundred adults (Liptalk).  That number is outrageous compared to other nations across the world.  Adam Liptalk also states that the median among all nations is about 125 people out of 100,000 which is approximately a sixth of the American rate.   If someone is on death row, the time period in which the trials and execution take place needs to be reduced.  This would allow for correctional institutions to decrease the overcapacity issues swiftly and effectively.  The whole process of executing a criminal can take upwards of two decades, that time frame needs to be around 7-10 years.  Capacity congestion in prisons is a major problem in our criminal justice system, and keeping the death penalty around as well as changing the process of it could decrease these numbers greatly.

Overcapacity in prisons isn’t the only issue within our prisons, but the price of housing inmates is also.  The overall process of the death penalty does cost more than life in prison, but most of those expenses come from trials.  What would you expect to cost more?  A trial where someone committed multiple first degree murders and has a possibility of receiving the death penalty or a trial where an assault took place.  According to Business Insider, post-conviction incarceration when the death penalty is sought cost $1,134,250 versus $1,527,182 where post-conviction incarceration when the death penalty is not sought (Sterbenz).  That is almost a $400,000 difference for when convicted inmates are house in prisons.  The possibility of killing two birds with one stone with not abolishing the death penalty is at stake.  Overcrowding can be reduced as well as saving $400,000 per inmate in housing fees after they have been executed.  

The main reason capital punishment should not be abolished in the United States is because it’s an effective deterrent of crime.  A deterrent can be defined as a thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from doing something.  The death penalty does just that for justice system.  When the death penalty was suspended in the 1960s when murder rates were at an all-time low.  It wasn’t till after the death penalty was abolished, that murder rates almost tripled, rising to an all-time high in the 1980s.  When the death penalty was reinstated, states started executing more people and the numbers returned back to how they were in the 1960s (Tucker).  That is three times more homicides when the death penalty was not in affect, and the numbers went back to how they used to be after it was reinstated.  This shows that capital punishment had an intimidation factor.  People were afraid to die because the death penalty was strongly enforced but when it was suspended all together, criminals became more comfortable about their decision making and murder rates skyrocketed.  

Many studies show that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on murder rates.  “[A] 2003 study by Emory University researchers of data from more than 3,000 counties from 1977 through 1996 found that each execution, on average, resulted in 18 fewer murders per county” (Muhlhausen).  For every death sentence that is carried out, 18 less murders happened per county.  Does this prove that capital punishment is a deterrent of homicide?  How about in an investigation of all 50 states from 1978-1997 found that each execution resulted in an average of 14 less murders annually (Muhlhausen).  Would you say that the death penalty is for sure a deterrent?  Finally, “A more recent study by Kenneth Land of Duke University and others concluded that, from 1994 through 2005, each execution in Texas was associated with "modest, short-term reductions" in homicides, a decrease of up to 2.5 murders” (Muhlhausen).  Whether you want to look at a closer study of counties, study of the country as a whole, or even a more recent study on the issue, you cannot say that the death penalty does not have a deterrent effect on murder rates.  

As to many reasons why the death penalty should still be enforced, there are also reasons as to why people think it should be abolished.  Nothing is perfect in the world.  People get wrongly convicted of crimes all across America, some of these people are completely innocent.  One source tells that about 4% of defendants that receive capital punishment are innocent (Pilkington).  Yes, no innocent person should ever be executed for something they did not do, but again, nothing on this earth is perfect.  This flaw inside of the system can be fixed. When you break a bone, do you kill the person just because one bone is broken?  No, you try to fix the bone. Innocent people should never be sent to death row, but they should also never get convicted in the first place.    The number of innocent lives being convicted needs to be reduced, to accomplish this the justice system could improve DNA testing for better accuracy, slow down the process of conviction to make sure the right person is caught, prevent biased opinions, and when new evidence emerges the case should be reopened to examine all new possible suspects.  A protocol should also be done for capital punishment if a criminal meets certain requirements of a crime (ex.- first degree murder, mass murders, etc.) then they automatically receive the death penalty.  This could be beneficial in decreasing the time it takes to convict a criminal and sentencing could come immediately.  The death penalty is an effective form of punishment and should not be abolished because of a fixable flaw inside the system.

Many people and studies also try to state that capital punishment does not deter crime.  Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post wrote an article “There’s still no evidence that executions deter criminals,” arguing that there is no correlation between the death penalty and the deterring of murder.  In the article, Max says “States have been executing fewer and fewer people over the past 15 years” (Ehrenfreund).  This statement doesn’t add up to being pro abolishment of capital punishment.  It can only contain evidence from states that have the death penalty, this means that in the states where the death penalty is still enforced, executions have gone down over the past 15 years.  This seems more of a positive reason that executions do deter crime don’t you think?  Max Ehrenfreund quoted Marc Mauer, the executive director of The Sentencing Project, stating that “We certainly can’t say that there is a deterrent.  We can’t say that there is not either” (Ehrenfreund).  So, in an article claiming that there is no evidence that executions deter crimes, it also says that you cannot say there isn’t a deterrent either.  It seems to me that this article is contradicting its initial claim.  One cannot simply make a claim saying there is no deterrent but then later completely contradict that statement by saying that you cannot officially rule out that there might be a possibility of one.  A source that crunches real numbers in showing that the death penalty does deter murder rates seems more reliable then sources that state there is no conclusive evidence to determine if the death penalty does or does not deter crime.  

The only other reason the death penalty could get abolished completely in the United States is the same reason it was suspended for before, its constitutionality.  The eighth amendment states that there should be no cruel and unusual punishment.  Many people think that the death penalty is cruel and unusual.  In many capital punishment cases, the defendant often challenges the eighth amendment saying that the death penalty is a violation of his amendments.  In one case, Glossip v. Gross, which questioned if Oklahoma’s lethal injection drug “Midazolam” was legal, the court upheld the lethal injection despite it being a very split decision.  “…Justice Breyer, who argues that it is “highly likely” that the death penalty as a whole violates the Eighth Amendment, because it is unreliable, arbitrary, slow and rare” (Baude).  Justice Breyer said that the death penalty violates the eighth amendment because it is unreliable yet have you ever heard of somebody that has lived through a whole execution?  No, so therefore you cannot say that it is unreliable since it seems to be very effective.  Why is the eighth amendment still a reason to abolish the death penalty?  It’s been suspended before because of this amendment but it was reinstated for a reason.  The supreme court took time to review if it does violate the eighth amendment but it was deemed NOT cruel and unusual punishment.  It was ruled this way for a reason, not just by chance. 

Capital Punishment should not be abolished in the United States because it is a very effective form of punishment, it reduces overcrowding, it costs less to house the inmates, and it is a deterrent of crime.  The death penalty is an effective form of punishment because it’s been used for thousands of years and it brings retribution the family and friends of the victims.  Overcrowding in prisons in our country has been a major issue for years and capital punishment being enforced upon those criminals that deserve it will help reduce those numbers greatly.  Taxpayers of the state already save money because an inmate on death row does not need housing and upkeep in a prison as long as an inmate that has life without parole.  Why would you try to abolish capital punishment when there are statistics proving that it intimidates and deters murder rates?  Wouldn’t this lead to less overcrowding in our prisons if it stays enforced in our country?  By no means am I saying that the process of capital punishment is a perfect system, but the flaws of it can be fixed.  To fix these flaws, the time frame of sentencing and executing an inmate on death row needs to be cut.  It can take upwards of a decade or two, to fully go through the trial and execution of a criminal.  The time of this process needs to be in a range of 7-10 years.  The death penalty often gets faulted for having innocent people on death row but that falls on the jury and court system for convicting that felon.  The number of innocent people convicted needs to be decreased but it starts with our criminal justice system, not by abolishing capital punishment.  The death penalty should not be abolished in the United States of America because any flaws of the process are fixable, so we should not terminate this form of punishment when it has been known to have more pros than cons in the way it effects our country.  
