putting someone to death for a crime is an easy way out. im sure most of these criminals would rather die than spend the rest of their lives in prison. so im against the death penalty, id rather have them suffer

The U.S.A. is the only county that is considered "civilized" and still uses the death penalty.

I am against the death penalty, avidly against it, because I believe that prison should be about rehabilitation and not just vengeful punishment. Remember, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Reasons why I OPPOSE the death penalty:
- It costs more money to put someone to death than it does to incarcerate them for life.
- It is not a deterrent (the murder rate in southern USA, where death penalty is legal, is considerably higher than the other regions of the USA [northeast, for instance] where the death penalty is illegal).
- Do we really have a right to take someone's life? Committing the exact same crime that they have done? You can't justify murder ... you can try, and people may believe you, but in the end, you can't.
- It's playing God; humans have no place to decide when others should die
- There are INNOCENT people on death row. I forgot the exact number, but since the death penalty was reinstated, some 30+ innocent people have been put to death before the appeals went through.
- People are being released from death row based on new technology that we didn't have during the commission of their crime (INNOCENT PEOPLE!)
- There is no rehabilitation
- There is no appeal
- The appeal process while on death row further drains money, time, and energy.

Etc...

danie_girl wrote:

QUOTE:
It is unclear what the step from being a child to being a child molester is, many think that when a child is molested, it turns them into a child molester, making it some sort of vicious cycle. I do not agree with this, terrible things happen to everyone, but not everyone turns around to do those terrible things to others. There isn't just one thing that makes a person become a child molester, and I find myself wanting to know what you think are the in between steps.

Maybe nothing. If they wanted to have sex with other kids when they were young it's possible that didn't change as they got older.

haha death penalty legal and suicide illegal what a fucked up place. You guys who are pro-death or worse are really twisted btw.

I personally believe there may be crimes so heinous that the only suitable punishment is death. While I do not like the notion of killing people, I feel we must sometimes do terrible things to ensure justice is maintained. In the case of such heinous crimes, I feel anything less than the death penalty would be treasonous to the innocent.

I do not know to which crimes we should apply the death penalty, however. It would take a judge much wiser than I to determine that. But it should be an option reserved to those who have deeply betrayed not only the innocent, but the very notion of humanity itself.

Also, characterizing proponents of the death penalty as stupid or barbaric serves no one and only makes one look both arrogant and ignorant. I believe this is an important issue and when debating important issues some basic decorum should be maintained, and calling people stupid is simply unmeritorious. It's not going to score you any debate points.

I believe in certain countries of the Middle East, they kill their homosexuals. The death penalty for homosexuality. In the Western world we now see that as barbaric and disgusting, though a few hundred years ago, hmm, I wonder.

Funny how subjective law is. I wonder what crimes we'd kill for today that in a hundred years we will see as gross injustice.

IIRC, people only get the death penalty in the US for premeditated murder, although in my opinion ones crime should be even worse than that to warrant it (for example, lots and lots of premeditated murders).

i believe that whoever has comitted murder should recieve the death penalty, but if someone has comitted a rape or sex crime of any kind, they should be castrated and made impotent so they can't re-offend even if they wanted...sounds fair to me.

Yes, like how homosexual acts were considered sex crimes. Those bastards. Off with his head! If you get the pun