Capital Punishment #2

After I debated on capital punishment and in the debate I had to be against it as in getting rid of it. I’m not sure where I stand anymore on this topic. I can totally see both sides to this. As I said in my lost blog on this that if you do something violent to hurt another person the you deserve to be punished but maybe it doesn’t have to be the death penalty. There are so many people who are held on death row for decades which I didn’t know that. Another thing that surprised me was when I was researching was how much money it took to keep a prisoner alive. Keeping someone alive costs around $10,000 - $25,000 per year. Another big factor is race. One study shows, “African Americans constitute 12% of the U.S. population, they are 35% of those on death row; 9% are Native American, Latino or Asian. The most important factor in levying the death penalty, however, is the race of the victim.” Another thing that I knew was a big issue was where you live. I just didn’t know how bad it was. The studies have shown that states that have the death penalty don’t have lower crime rates. It also shows that states without capital punishment have no change in crime or murder rates. However I still feel like we need to keep capital punishment. I know that in the bible it says something like if someone strikes us we should turn the other cheek. That maybe the best thing and all but I think keeping capital punishment will give some kind of closure to the family’s. It wont bring anyone back but it will help some I think. Like I have said before I think executing a convict is showing us that justice is being served. People feel a lot safer knowing that a criminal is put behind bars and/or executed. We will never catch every criminal out there but It helps keep our streets some what safer. After debating I guess it didn’t really change my mind but it let me see how much goes on and what is wrong with the way things are going. So In the end I’m still going to stick with if you take someone’s life yours deserves to be taken also.