There are over 16,000 murders in the United States every year, which comes out to around 44 every day. That’s 44 people every day who will no longer be able to see their families and loved ones. Most of these murderers enter our criminal justice system and stay in prison for the rest of their lives. This is contributing to the well-known fact that American prisons are becoming overwhelmingly overpopulated, and the amount of taxpayer dollars to keep up with the increasing number of people incarcerated is going up dramatically. America represents only 4.4% of the world population, yet we have 22% of our population incarcerated. The death penalty is not only necessary, but essential to the American criminal justice system. Every state in the United States should keep or re-implement the death penalty because it provides the most effective form of deterrence for citizens, brings down governmental costs when done efficiently, and is the swiftest form of justice for heinous crimes American citizens can commit. 

Since the first court ordered execution in 1608, there have been over 20,000 legal executions on U.S. soil, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in 2003. Most of these executions have occurred within the past century. George Kendall, the first person executed in America was sentenced to death in 1608 by firing squad in Virginia for spying for the Spanish army, which started the very necessary process of having a death penalty in the United States. Although the first recorded death sentence in America was only 400 year ago, people have been sentenced to death since 16 BCE in ancient Egypt, both children and adults. Hammurabi’s Code, which is an ancient Babylonian law code contains one of the most important phrase that applies to the death penalty: an eye for an eye. This rule applied for multiple crimes committed centuries ago, but only applies to murder today. If someone were to take someone else’s life unlawfully, they should experience what they caused by legal execution. This is because murder is the most vicious crime someone can commit. 

 Currently, there are international laws prohibiting anyone from being executed under the age of 18 at the time of their crime, although some countries in the middle east have done away with these laws. In the United States, 32 states still practice the death penalty and have an average of 3,000 people on death row at any given time. There are currently five crimes that are punishable by death in the United States: treason, terrorism, espionage, large scale drug trafficking, and murder. Most criminals on death row will be sentenced to death because of murder. 

When it comes to the methods used for executions, there are currently five; Texas is the only state to use all five. The most commonly used by states is lethal injection. This is made up of “pentobarbital (anesthetic), pancuronium bromide (a paralytic agent, also called Pavulon), and potassium chloride (stops the heart and causes death),” according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The other methods for execution include hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, and electric chair. Other states did away with other methods for multiple reasons in the last 50 years. For example, if someone is sentenced to death by a firing squad, the inmate stands infront of five officers, all with assault rifles. All five of the officers shoot the inmate at the same time, but only one officer has an actual bullet in their gun, and the others shoot blank shells. This was the process so that none of the officers knew who were to actually kill the inmate, but this was done away in most states because state governments didn’t want the officers shooting to feel personally guilty for sentencing the inmates to death. The electric chair was also removed from most states because it was seen by some as an old form of executions, and to a small number, cruel and unusual punishment. 

Deterrence is something that is put in place so that it prevents people from doing something unintended. When a deterrence is put into place, a person (in this case a person who is thinking about committing a crime) must weigh the cause and effects of the situation and judge for themselves if that particular action should be committed. The death penalty is the most effective form of deterrence for citizens committing crimes like murder. This deterrence not only applies to citizens who are not incarcerated, so they don’t commit crimes like murder in the community, but also people currently in the criminal justice system who may commit crimes while incarcerated, who may have otherwise caused harm to other inmates or correctional officers. An article by Sean Alfano titled, “Death Penalty Deters Murders, Studies Say,” explains that the death penalty saves anywhere from three to 18 murders, 18 being the absolute highest amount preventable. In 2003 and 2006, Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado found that there is an average of five murders prevented for every execution in the United States. By these statistics, if the death penalty were in every state, the murder rate throughout the country would drop dramatically. On the contrary, life in prison does not provide a deterrence towards criminals. In a book by Hugo Adam Bedau, titled, “Deterrence and The Death Penalty; a Reconsideration,” Bedau says, “serving a ‘life’ sentence do not in general constitute a source of genuine alarm to personnel,” and goes on to explain why. He says that a life in prison only deters people already incarcerated who are fearful of staying in prison for the rest of their lives. There is no correlation to a decrease in homicides when there is only life in prison present. Some studies try to fight the idea of the death penalty as a deterrent because they say that some states with the death penalty have some of the most murders in the country. These claims are true, but they are not telling the whole story. For example, Chicago has one of the highest murder rates for a city in the entire country. Illinois still has the death penalty, but imagine if the death penalty were taken away. That would take almost all deterrence away from citizens and would almost absolutely increase the amount of murders in the area each and every year. 

Currently, the cost difference for a murder with life in prison is significantly lower than cost for an inmate awaiting the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in 2008, the average cost of Oregon’s murderers who received life in prison cost about $300,000 per inmate, $1.1 million for the average person on death row. Professor Aliza Kaplan out of Washington says, 

“The decision makers, those involved in the criminal justice system, everyone, deserves to know how much we are currently spending on the death penalty, so that when stakeholders, citizens and policy-makers make these decisions, they have as much information as possible to decide what is best for Oregon,” 

and he is absolutely right. Why should the tax payers want to spend over three times the amount of money for someone to be sentenced to death when they can sentence them to life in prison? These death penalty trials are so expensive because they include so many things that are unnecessary, even after the suspect is convicted. Some of the reasons include: the state needs to hire death penalty qualified defense lawyers, there are more pretrial and post-trial filings by the prosecutors and the defense, the amount of time for jury selection sky rockets, and once the suspect is convicted of murder, they then receive anywhere from three to 12 appeals to the U.S. District Court, the State Appellate Court, and finally the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Some of these extra procedures are effective when dealing with a death penalty case like a more thorough jury selection to be absolutely certain that the trial has an unbiased jury to make an effective decision, and the need to find the right lawyers qualified for both the prosecution and the defense. What is unnecessary and eats away at the taxpayer’s dollars is the amount of appeals each convicted person on death row receives. Inmates on death row spend multiple months, even over a year to write each appeal. During these long and drawn out years on death row, each inmate is getting three square meals a day, recreational time, air conditioning, electricity and water. There are many people in this very country who don’t receive that kind of treatment. Especially because it’s free for the inmate, provided by the taxpayers. And all they have to do on death row is stretch out the time by taking their time with their 12 appeals. Once they write the appeals and send them off, they may receive even one or two more trials. There is no need for any more than three appeals per inmate on death row. According to CNN, back in 1992, William Garner murdered five children in Ohio, by setting a house on fire which he had just broken in, entered, and robbed. While the children slept, they were being suffocated and died of smoke inhalation. The crime was committed in 1992, and William Garner did not receive lethal injection until 2010. Garner was on death row for 18 years because of the lengthy appeal process, while in the end he received no hint at exoneration what-so-ever. The current amount of appeals allowed to each person on death row is a waste of money, not only for the taxpayers, but also for the state and federal government to pay for the multiple lengthy trials. Collectively, this amount of appeals costs the taxpayers and the government inside and outside of the courtroom, and would save millions of dollars every year if the appeals process were shortened. 

The death penalty is not only helpful and useful towards the idea of a deterrence in the criminal justice system and can also reduce governmental costs when done efficiently, but the death penalty also serves beneficial to the community and for the families whose loved ones were murdered by people in prison. By sentencing someone like a murderer to death, the community becomes safer because that person, whether he/she gets out of prison or not, they will no longer even have the chance to cause more harm to the community or the people in it. It is also seen as the swiftest form of justice to the victim’s family because each family of a murder victim will no longer be able to see their loved one. They will no longer be able to hug, kiss, or even talk to their loved one who tragically died, and life in prison is often not seen as enough in the family’s eyes. People who support the death penalty believe that the murderer should experience what they put through their victim(s), and the death penalty is the only form of punishment that can reciprocate to the murderer. Robert Blecker, a professor of law at New York Law School says, “Regardless of future benefits, we justify punishment because it's deserved. Let the punishment fit the crime,” which goes back to the idea of “an eye for an eye” from Hammurabi’s Code. We tell children in our society to live by the golden rule, or to treat others the way you would like to be treated, so why not live by that statement throughout our entire lives? When someone commits an act as evil as murder, the murderer does not deserve to live out their days watching television and lounging around. Robert Blecker also defines the difference between revenge and retribution, and the fact that they are two totally different concepts. He says, “revenge knows no bounds, retribution must be limited, proportional and appropriately directed,” which describes the death penalty. If sentencing someone to death were to be considered revenge, you would have to go back to the 1800’s out west and shoot someone dead in the street. But the death penalty is nothing like that. The 32 states that still have the death penalty have a certain set of rules and laws that someone can commit to receive the death penalty. They have juries, hearings, and a lengthy process to determine if someone should be executed. The defendant is judged by their peers in the form of juries and the defendant’s peers determine his or her fate. There is a massive difference between taking someone’s life out of rage, and doing it the right and most ethical way as possible. 

People who oppose the death penalty will explain that the act of killing any one, no matter what, is morally and ethically wrong. Sean McElwee, a writer for The Huffington Post published an article in 2013 about why the death penalty should be banned in the United States. In the article titled: “It’s Time to Abolish the Death Penalty,” calls the death penalty institutionalized revenge, and emotional closure (in a negative way). The article explains why Germany has abolished their death penalty many years ago. Sean McElwee talks about since the Holocaust occurred, Germany does not want a disproportionate number of Jewish people on death row. The article says “After the crimes of Nazism, the very idea of the state putting [Jewish] individuals to death is too much to countenance,” talking about Germany possibly putting more Jewish people to death because of and since the Holocaust. By this argument McElwee is explaining, intended or not, that the German government and people are still anti-Semitic and will evidently repeat history by putting too many Jews on death row. In the beginning of his article, McElwee says, “Life imprisonment is certainly a deterrent — in fact, it may be worse than death itself.” This is a false statement. What makes life in prison: getting three meals a day, recreational time every day, and the ability to live out your days in air conditioned buildings provided by the tax payers more of a deterrence that being sentenced to death? The article does not go into detail or even back up their statements. McElwee also points out some countries that still have the death penalty including, “China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen,” because his point is to show that we are alike some countries which we have had conflicts with. What he fails to mention is there about 50 more countries in the world that support the death penalty, whom the United States has no current conflicts with. Claims made by people who oppose the death penalty bring up effective points for an argument, but either leave holes in their argument, and fail to back up their claims with sufficient evidence. 

During a U.S. Senate debate in Illinois between Alan Keyes and Barack Obama, Alan Keyes was asked why he is for the death penalty but against abortion while being Catholic. The interviewer quotes the Pope saying that “the dignity of human life must never be taken,” and Keyes responds by saying that murders and people on death row have created inherently evil crimes and that a baby can do no such things. These criminals commit their heinous crimes, and sometimes get released early for good behavior, and then reenter the community to recommit the very crimes that got them into prison in the first place. 

The death penalty needs to stay in the United States because it is the only punishment that is absolute and in most cases, is the same act that the inmate committed in the first place. For thousands of years, people have sentenced people to death for acts like murder, and there are many more benefits than drawbacks. According to multiple studies, the crime rates in our communities would increase dramatically if there were no death penalty. That’s because for criminals, the potential of being sentenced to death is the only thing that can prevent these horrible crimes committed. These days people don’t care if they spend the rest of their lives in a cell, because these crimes are still occurring each and every day. Capital punishment needs to occur more often in our criminal justice system so for once, these criminals or potential criminals will have to weigh the benefits of the crime versus the punishment of death. They then take their life into their own hands because they decide that by committing these crimes, they will take and accept the risk of being sentenced to death. But in order for the death penalty to be seen more commonly in our criminal justice system, changes have to be made. The cost for things like trials, lawyers, juries, and appeals is far too great for the number of people on death row to increase. It is sensible to be thorough in the process of sentencing someone to death, but the way now is not efficient as possible. The amount of appeals a person receives on death row is wasteful of the time for the government, helps extend the amount of time the inmate has left, and is less justice for the victim(s)’s families. While it is appropriate that this act of retribution is taking place in the American criminal justice system, it needs to stay, become more commonly seen, and done correctly. 
