beccalouise said:
As someone has already pointed out, it costs more to put someone to death than to keep them in prison for life, so it can't be justified in that respect.
[post="1045600"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
Really? This I didn't know. I've always assumed that it costs less to execute someone...
I'm personally against capital punishment, but I decided to type in arguments from a criminological point of view for both sides. I'm a criminology student and this is coming directly from my lecture notes.
For Capital Punishment:
- If they think it's okay to kill people, why can't we kill them?
- Makes room in prison
- Why should we use government money to house criminals?
- The punishment should fit the crime
Against:
- In areas with capital punishment, there are higher crimes rates. Why?
--> There is a low certainty of getting capital punishment
--> The state killing justifies the killing by its citizens
--> Even if someone does get the death sentence, it takes a very long time before that comes around
--> criminals who do get this sentence aren't afraid of the capital punishment
- There have been errors regarding who is put on death row. In the last couple of decades, 70+ people had to be pulled off because new (scientific) evidence came up that proved their innocence. Imagine how many innocents could have died before these scientific methods came into use?