Capital punishment is an outdated system that does not justify the means or improve society in any form. Putting people to death will not stop other people from committing atrocious acts, like murder, and this is true because homicide is the only violent crime that has risen in the last couple of years where other crimes have decreased (FBI statistics.)

The systematic killing of people does not solve the crime problem in the U.S. and does not even prevent them from happening, meaning that the system has failed. It is absurd for the state to make the decision of putting somebody to death and it will not fix the lives that have been ruined by people on death row. Capital punishment just shows that the justice system has as little respect for the sanctity of life as a murderer does.

Taking somebody’s life away is a decision no human being has the right to make, but the justice system has no regard for this belief and because of it hundreds or people, if not thousands, will die because it will likely remain legal until people realize that it does not work.

The government spends money on housing people to their graves years down the road instead of using it to better the lives of people who work hard and try to contribute to life around them.

Inmates just sit in prison costing tens of thousands of dollars per year, and the convict does not work or give back to the community or people he has hurt as a result of his actions. Inmates stay in their tax-paid cells waiting for an expensive appeal process that on average takes more than a decade to complete, separated from other inmates and free from harm, not paying taxes or giving back to the world at all.

Having a person sit on death row for so long contributes to nothing, and executing people just adds to more statistics that depict murder as a socially-acceptable punishment in this country. Many countries in the world have banned capital punishment, including Canada, Italy, Denmark and Australia, while other less-industrialized countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia still see executions as a typical way to fight crime. Having execution as a legal means of punishment only glorifies violence and brutality.

Death sentences use the fear of death to prevent murder, but it does not work because most killings happen “on the spot” and are not pre-meditated, so the concept of death as a deterrent has little value. Even planned-out murders still occur all the time, like with the two snipers in Washington D.C., no less; so the fear is not there. Some people even see it as “an easy way out” instead of spending life in prison. Serial killers or those who can be deemed as “criminally insane” often present themselves for media attention and try to justify their cause of violence through the media before they die, and this is exactly what they want and get. Having death row criminals on a separate class of their own only further glorifies them.

If inmates have ruined people’s lives, they should have to dedicate their lives to servitude and making other peoples’ lives better, and not just stand around costing people money for nothing. There is a saying about “idle hands doing the devil’s work,” so people in the government need to realize that their system does not fix anything, and these “leaders” need to see what is best for the community, the tax payers and the inmates before hundreds more have to die slow deaths in prison. If people start thinking and stop looking at “the old way of doing things,” we could find better solutions.