Capital Punishment: The Good Side
November 2, 1982
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I think that capital punishment
is important to enforce crime in some situations. Some people think that
capital punishment is cruel. I think that any insane person who brutally slaughters
innocent human beings is even more cruel. I also believe that it should be
the option of each state to have the death penalty. Some of the advantages of
capital punishment are that it keeps prisons less crowded, helps reduce crime
and homicide rates, and it assures that dangerous murderers will never walk
the streets again via parole, escape, etc. I think capital punishment is
quite necessary to fight crime. One of the more obvious reasons
for capital punishment to be used is it helps keep prisons less crowded. If a
person can be executed instead of keeping a cell occupied for life it will
save space. This is just common sense. It should also help reduce crime
and homicide rates. Criminals may be more afraid of killing somebody if they
know they would die because of it. Statistics show that no drastic increase
is made when the death penalty is abolished. Well, I think that even a slight
increase is more than reason enough for the death penalty. The final reason is that it actually assures us that dangerous criminals will never get free again by escape, parole, etc. Look at Charles Manson for example. Some people think he will be on parole in ten years. This is probably true. Who knows what he'll do when he gets out? Kill and kill again. I saw a TV program where a murderer pleaded insanity several times and afterwards gets out and kills people time after time. This won't happen with the death penalty. Capital punishment is necessary to fight crime in certain situations. It helps keeps prisons less crowded, reduces crime and homicide rates and it is impossible for a dangerous criminal to get out and walk the streets again. In closing, I would like to say that the death penalty is important if we want to retain our proud democracy. Criminals who kill innocent human beings should be forced to pay the ultimate price, death. After all, shouldn't the punishment fit the crime? |
Commentary: In "Capital Punishment: The Good Side" the author uses inflammatory language ("any insane person who brutally slaughters innocent human beings") and scare tactics (Manson will soon be paroled and will "kill and kill again") to manipulate the reader's emotions. This technique is probably used to divert attention from faulty logic and poor support for his argument. For example, what is this phantom "TV Program" and why is it not identified? Exactly what do the numbers say? The author even admits that the "deterrence" argument has no statistical backing. (Though in a tricky bit of semantic play-action, the author takes "no drastic increase" in the murder rate without the death penalty to mean "a slight increase.") Ultimately, poor research and a hastily constructed argument derail the author's thesis.
A quick biographical aside: the Manson fixation in this essay is not accidental. This piece dates from a time when the author poured over the book Helter Skelter obsessively and occasionally scrawled "Death To Pigs" and "Rise" on the walls of his school in red magic marker. Note that these activities overlapped in time with the writing of the saccharine "A Holiday Wish."