The Death Penalty

I thought I would write about something that came up awhile back when the U.S. Attorney General ordered the first federal executions since 2003. More broadly, I wanted to talk about the death penalty and the thoughts I have about it.

The argument for and against the death penalty is a very polarizing, complicated one. I tend to lead more towards there are unfortunately cases that we do need the death penalty. I think the article above from the The Daily Wire showed that there are people that commit truly heinous crimes and perhaps they are beyond rehabilitation, so what other choice do we have? Do we just let them stay in prison for a lifetime? Is that any more moral than the death penalty? This is going to be a very opinionated post.

I think this has to do with a larger discussion about the reason for our prison system. What is the reason for our prison system? Is it to rehabilitate people? Is it to punish people? Maybe both? Do we have to decide what a person has done to determine if they should and can be rehabilitated? What if they can’t be rehabilitated? Where is the line of what crimes can or can’t be rehabilitated? And if they can’t be rehabilitated, then do we leave them in prison for the remainder of their life, regardless of how long that may be, or are they executed?

I tend to lean towards the large majority of people who committed a crime are capable of rehabilitation and they should be rehabilitated. But we can’t deny that people who commit some sort of crime, deserve to receive some sort of punishment. It seems that best way would be decide upon what a fair prison sentence should be, but also to rehabilitate that person to become a functioning member of society by the time they are released. Based on the rate upon people who go to prison, end up back in prison, it doesn’t seem like our rehabilitation efforts are working. Especially when you consider what living in solitary confinement can do to you.

To keep this relatively short, I think the discussion about the death penalty is a much more specific discussion that we can only reach a resolution on once we have a much broader discussion about our prison system. Once we reach that point and have a successful way to rehabilitate people who have committed crimes, I think at that point, we can discuss what needs to happen to those we can’t rehabilitate. Even if we do decide that the death penalty is something we think we need, we need to discuss how can we be the most certain that this person is guilty of their crime. Once we reach that point, only then can we decide if the death penalty is necessary.