Last night, I was watching a Japanese movie called "Criminal Psychology: Personal Behavior Analysis" with my friend, David, at a movie theater. Actually, the movie focused on a serial killer.When he was eight,he first murdered his father to avenge his mother who had been murdered by his father. After that, he believed that he was born in a murderous family; therefore, he killed another 12 people in four years. Normal audiences would think that this guy deserved to be executed; however,in most cases, we cannot provide enough evidence to prove the criminals' guilt.
Nowadays, many countries have made the death penalty illegal, but some countries like China, the government still executes some criminals. Nevertheless, in my opinion, there is no doubt that the death penalty should be illegal.
The most important reason why the death penalty should be banned is because life is priceless and precious. It should be respected regardless of whether the person is moral or immoral.When serving for the army in the First World War, Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "Life is a Gift of God!"God offers power for our parents to create lives by using many efforts. Needless to say, life is undeniably the most valuable thing to us.You cannot change the fact that a criminal killed a person because killing is killing. Even when seeking "justice", we are reduced to the level of a killer when we execute a person.
Another reason why we must get rid of capital punishment is that the laws are not fair for everyone. In other words, laws are unevenly applied because of our unique personal beliefs. When I was 6 years old, I first saw a news report about a police from Hong Kong who was murdered by a thief. At that time, the federal government decided to kill this person because they thought that police represented justice and had a responsibility to maintain the society's safety.In order to reduce this type of crime, the government chooses to execute him.Recently, a news report again repeated the same information as what I saw in my early childhood. At this time, the government decided to send him to the jail because they hoped the criminal would change. This comparison tells me that the government believes that the criminal should have a chance to change their personality. A few people still agree that their countries should have the death penalty; yet many people have already changed their mind and strongly opposed this punishment.
Finally,capital punishments cost a great deal of money. According to the "Mercury News", State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, said she introduced a bill to eliminate the death penalty because California can no longer afford a capital punishment system.She stated "That is both expensive and ineffective as it battles persistent multi-billion-dollar budget deficits."Also, according to the news report, Sacramento attorney and former prosecutor Donald Heller found that California taxpayers spend $184 million annually to try death penalty cases. I could imagine that the reason why the United States had economic depression in both 1929 and 2008because of the high cost of incarcerating and trying capital cases. In addition to the California state, I've estimated that the annual fee in America is around 100 billion for the death penalty.Instead, this amount of money is better for the governments to use to operate more health care and educational systems.
Some people believe that the death penalty helps to build a safer society because it removes these criminals from society and deters crime. However, there is no clear and creditable evidence that can be used to show the higher efficiency of the death penalty than the long terms of imprisonment. In spite of having the highest rate of capital punishment in Louisiana, they still have the highest crime rate and murder rate when compared with other's states. In other words, the death penalty has fewer restrictive effects than we expected. From the "Yahoo discussion board", a person stated, "I guess it (doing wrong things) is human nature, sometimes we do wrong then do not realize until after wards after having a think about things." There is no doubt that all of us do wrong things because it's our nature. Nobody was born to have a perfect personality. Similarly, having crime is one of the most basic phenomena in the world because we are not living in a paradise. Nobody can make sure that the earth is totally safe. However, without crimes, there will have fewer peace-keeping jobs offer for the police and the security service; thus,unemployment rate will rise alarmingly. Those effects which accompany with the capital punishment are much worse than no such harmful penalties.
In conclusion, there are many punishments that we can use for crimes. However, not all of them are absolutely possible for the government to use, including the death penalty. I firmly believe that life is invaluable and the laws for the criminals are not fair, in addition to the horribly high cost in dollars of the death penalty. These three reasons unquestionably indicate that life is not something we can take away from another person.Even if criminals do unforgivable things, we should never take away their right to live.
