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-
- The Death Penalty
- An article by Nice Guy
-
- Recently I have noticed an alarming growing, amount of people who are
- supporting the reintroduction of the death penalty. If you are a
- civilised human being you should be afraid, very afraid.
-
- For a start 60% to 70% of murders are when people are intoxicated with
- either drugs or alcohol (mainly alcohol). This means that when the crime
- was committed the person did not have full control of themselves.
-
- The next question is what crimes should the death penalty be brought in.
- Child molestation, premeditated murder, racist killings, rape, child
- killings, deaths caused by drunken driving or manslaughter. These crimes
- are possibly the worst, so which criminals should be killed. All of
- them? I don't think so...
-
- Is killing really a civilised attitude to take. We are the only mammals
- to walk on two feet, we have evolved from the primordial slime. Most of
- the highly developed sea mammals and land mammals have a society where
- everyone is protected. The most obvious example is that of dolphins and
- lions, yes lions. Lions although they kill other animals as we do, to
- survive they never kill their own. So they show * US * how THEY are more
- developed than us.
-
- The next question is how do we kill the person, hanging, lethal
- injection, electrocution, the firing squad, drowning, burning, smashing
- of person's skull on wall, death by a thousand cuts, starvation or what
- ever you can think of. Some of these are particularly painful. If
- killing for killing is ever reintroduced I would think that lethal
- injection is probably the most humane way.
-
- Another point to notice is that nobody seems to realise that in America
- they have to keep people in prison for at least ten years so that the
- convicted felons have a number of tries at being acquitted and are
- allowed to try to lessen the chances of a wrongful conviction.
-
- Contrary to popular belief there are very few 'plush' prisons. Most
- prisons involve inmates staying inside for 23 hours a day and then given
- an hour free time. However some of this 23 hours can be spent on
- learning qualifications and being taught how to hold down a job. I
- believe the main point of prison should be to reform, with punishment so
- that victims can feel they have been righted. Also prisons are
- unhygienic due to 'slopping out'. Prisons are also dangerous, they have
- high suicide rates, offenders who have committed particular crimes (such
- as child molestation) are usually tormented and beaten up on a regular
- basis.
-
- The few 'plush' prisons which exist are low security and house blue chip
- criminals (fraudsters) or AIDS sufferers. The men inside are usually
- non-violent. The reason these prisons are 'plush' is because the
- facilities are better the main improvement being that there is a toilet
- and they have some privacy and are treated like human beings.
-
- To put a biblical note on the whole thing, in the old testament it was
- said 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'. But Jesus said 'He who
- has not sinned, cast the first stone' nobody is perfect and no punishment
- should be so final that the punished should not have a chance to redeem
- themselves. Also quoted is 'I tell you to forget the old ways, if
- someone slaps you on the right cheek give them the left' and 'If
- everybody took an eye for an eye everybody would be blind'.
-
- So to sum up, the death penalty in my eyes is wrong. Everybody should be
- given a chance and the education to redeem themselves.
-
- END
- ===
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