Abolish the death penalty

The fact that Canada and certain Nordic nations without the death penalty have much lower murder rates than we do here in the states suggests that the murder rate is not integrally tied to the death penalty. I am not suggesting that this is evidence that getting rid of the death penalty in our society will lower the murder rate, in fact I believe the opposite would likely be true.

It does show, however, that we can reform our society in ways that would bring us to a less murder-prone state than we are in now without sanctioning the government to commit murder. Being against the death penalty does not mean ignoring the incentive structure that it creates, just that there are certain things the state should not have the right to do in order to lower the incentive to kill, especially when there is clearly another way to go about doing things.
In the end, to me this is an empirical question, and if I was shown that America would be unequivocally better off (in terms of the protection of innocent life, considering the balance both of potential victims and of those wrongly convicted and sentenced to death) by keeping the death penalty, then I would be inclined to support it.

I think the real world examples of Canada and a number EU countries without the death penalty but with lower murder rates, however, are sufficient grounds for striving to lower the murder rate in our own country without capital punishment.

Just think of it as a late abortion, not murder.


...just kidding

aside from the humanitarian ideas which conflict with the death penalty, I've always thought it's a large waste of money and labor. the money spent on lawyers and the time to put together an appeal could be used for something different, read: more productive.

Families of the victims of brutal crimes, for which the perpetrators are threatened with capital punishment, have testified that having the perpetrator killed, under the death penalty, will NOT relieve their suffering.

On the contrary, murder--by the government--creates more sorrow and suffering, because the families of the perpetrators of brutal crimes now have also lost people they love.

Condemning violence that occurs in the private sector, while committing murders itself, hypocritical of state governments.

Murder is murder no matter who's the perpetrator.