A new semester...

We began our semester today at Kenrick, but for me its almost another day off. You see, I have no classes on Tuesday. In fact, I have 3 classes on Mon. and Wed., one class on Thur. afternoon and one class on Friday. Plus, none of my classes begin until at least 10:30 a.m. I know...it's a rough life, but someone has got to do it <grin>.

In light of the execution of a 76 year old man by the State of California (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181862,00.html), it would seem its time to re-examine both the humaneness of capital punishment and whether we actually need it in today's society. Executing a 76 year old man seems to be fairly cruel, but regardless of the person's age it seems like an extreme means. It is also permanent and final. If you later find out the person was innocent, its not like you can release them and say, "we're sorry." And I have heard the argument that nearly everyone executed is guilty. The words 'nearly everyone' bothers me. The prime example of an innocent person being executed was Jesus Christ.

On my second point, it seems that as deterrent to crime and protecting society , which are the common arguments used to defend capital punishment, the death penalty doesn't seem to be very valid reasons for promoting its use. As a deterrent, it seems to make no difference since murders continue to be committed and persons continue to be sentenced to death. Secondly, in our society today, the prison system does a fine job in keeping prisoners behind bars and as such protecting society. Besides, how dangerous could a 76 year old man be that we fear for our safety. It appears to me that the death penalty is used more as a means of revenge. This seems to be the case with this 76 year old man, especially since he had a nearly fatal heart attack this past Sept.  and yet he was revived after the heart attack only to be executed four months later.

Statistics show that the death penalty is not doing what supporters claim it does. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that the U.S. murder rate for 2004was about 5.5 per 100,000 persons, nearly unchanged from 2001(5.5%), 2002(5.6%) and 2003(5.6%). Furthermore, according to 2004 statistics, the murder rate of the states that have the death penalty (38 states) was 5.1%. Compare this with the murder rate of 2.9% for states without the death penalty (12 states) (source: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/).

In the final analysis, the death penalty doesn't seem to deter crime or protect society any better than prisons, rather it serves more as a revenge factor. It also has questionable issues regarding humaneness. Lastly, it continues to feed the Culture of Death that seems to be growing in our society today.

Just my two cents on capital punishment. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 10:14 | link | comments |
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