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Starting with the definition of just and merciful, I have a question for everybody to ponder upon. How do you define merciful and just? Can a person or a system be just and merciful at the same time? If system forgives the tried one, will it still be just?
Well in my opinion, yes, a system or a person can be just and merciful at the same time. The laws of the state, for instance, were initially made with the intention to help and assist the people indulged with poor habits to get rid of those and eliminate the crime. NOT CRIMINALS.
2.3 million people being incarcerated making the USA the highest incarceration state ever. Criminal system is meant to make a person’s life better and not destroy it. However, surveys show people with criminal records have difficulty in finding employment apartments hotels and deals at much costlier.
Adam Foss is a prosecutor in Boston who talks about an African American guy Christopher in his ted talk. Christoper wanted to attend the college and he could get the scholarship but he stole 30 laptops and sold them online. He was caught. Prosecutor Adam changed his life by not taking him to trial but by a plea. Christoper did the community service and jobs. He raised money to pay back 75 percent. He found a scholarship and graduated from the bank general manager. Thousands of examples exist like these.
USA government almost executes 13 persons per year. Convicting people of their crimes such as murder and sentencing them to death. And what do we get in return? Nothing. Instead of more murderers; a whole chain reaction starts with the murder and death sentences. A person is simply not killed when he is sick; It ensured to provide him the proper treatment for the better peaceful world.
Death Penalties should be abolished
The death penalty does not deter crime. Killing people for killing people? Does that sound sensible? Murderers are not actually thinking of the results while killing a person or committing a crime. Studies in Oklahoma and California show that the murder rates go up with the death penalties. Canada ever since it has abolished the death penalty, its murder rates have gone down. 88 percent of the death penalty experts do agree with the pol which agrees with this.
People against it say that it is cheaper to kill people than to maintain them and provide treatment. It takes 1 million USD to keep a person in jail for life while it takes 5 million USD to execute a person including the appeals and other pertinent stuff. Moreover, it’s morally not acceptable to kill a person because it’s cheaper to kill them. Between 1980-2012, California spent $4 billion on death penalty cases while executing only 13 per year. When divided per case it rises way too much.
An eye for an eye would leave the whole world behind. Another argument is to kill a person who kills somebody is the best revenge. It is more of a philosophical argument than a solid one because we do not rob a person who robs, we do not rape a person who rapes and it goes on. As a society, our purpose should be to finish the killing after a crime has been committed instead of starting a chain of killings. Moreover, the government’s job is to protect the lives and the properties of its citizens and not killing them.
In 1983 an 11-year-old a North Carolina girl was raped and suffocated to death. Her body was found later in a soybean field. To mentally disabled half-brothers became the target of investigation (Henry McCollum and Leon Brown). After a long investigation, both confessed and they were convicted and sentenced to death. Their conviction was praised but the problem is they were innocent. After 30 years, DNA evidence revealed another man who lived nearby and had a long record of sexual assaults was the murderer and he was never investigated! Two men were executed for the crime they never committed. This is how dangerous the death penalty really is.
The legal justice system of a state serves to provide all kinds of facilities to its citizens. It does not have to eliminate the state of a problem but to eliminate the problem itself. The death penalty is the solution to nothing and deteriorates the matter further.
