Port D'armes

I) It Teaches the Condemned Nothing

What is the purpose of punishment? We take our lead from one major source, our parents—and they no doubt took their lead from their own parents. When your young child emulates what he just saw in a Rambo movie, you give him a stern lecture about what is real and what is not, what is acceptable in real life and what is not. When your child tries some crazy acrobatic move off a piece of furniture and hurts himself, you might spank him to be sure that he remem-bers never to do it again.

So when the child grows up, breaks into a home, and steals electronics, he gets caught and goes to prison. His time in prison is meant to deprive him of the freedom to go where he wants anywhere in the world, and to do what he wants when he wants. This is the punishment, and most people do learn from it. In general, no one wants to go back. But if that child grows up and murders someone for their wallet or just for fun, and they are in turn put to death, they are taught precisely nothing, because they are no longer alive to learn from it. We cannot rehabili-tate a person by killing him or her.

II) It Does Not Dissuade

If the foreknowledge of any punishment is meant to dissuade the criminal from

committing the crime, why do people still murder others? The US had a 2012

murder rate of 4.8 victims per 100,000—meaning that nearly 15,000 people were

victims of homicide that year. Capital punishment does not appear to be doing its

job; it doesn’t seem to be changing every criminal’s mind about killing innocent

people. If it does not dissuade, then it serves no purpose. The warning of life in

prison without parole must equally dissuade criminals.

III) It Is Hypocritical

It is strange that a nation would denounce the practice of murder by committing the very same act. By doing so, we’re essentially championing the right to life by taking it from others. True—as a whole, we are not murderers, and understandably refuse to be placed in the same category as someone like Ted Bundy. But to many oppo-nents of the death penalty, even Ted Bundy should have been given life without pa-role. The fact that he murdered at least thirty people—for the mere reason that he enjoyed doing it—has no bearing on the hypocrisy, the flagrant dishonesty, of the declaration that such a person deserves to be killed because he had no right to kill.

If the goal of any punishment, as stated above, is to teach us those things we should not do, then the justice system should more adequately teach the criminality of killing by refusing to partake in it.

IV) It Is Always Cruel

In the end, though, death is always at least a little painful. Perhaps the only truly peaceful way to go is while asleep—but no one has ever come back to say that this didn’t hurt. If your heart stops while you sleep, it is certainly possible that your brain will recognize a problem and wake you up at the very

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