Societies change over time and government must change its policies also, in order to reflect the will of the people. Texas, obstinately rooted in archaic tradition, ranks number one in the United States in terms of death sentence convictions.
David R. Dow, a Texas law professor at the University of Houston Law Center and a representative of death row inmates, states, "Texas executes so many people because it executes so many people... Killing people is like most anything else; the more you do it, the better you get. If killing people were like playing the violin, Texas would have been selling out Carnegie Hall years ago."
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after a period of suspension due to a lack of national standards (1972-1976), Texas has executed 503 inmates out of the national total of 1,234. Despite a 65% national majority in favor of capital punishment, 19 states plus the District of Columbia have abolished it. Capital punishment seems to be losing favor with Texas juries too, with new death sentence convictions down by nearly 80% since 1999.
While the morality of capital punishment remains arguable, the egregious amount of money spent on executions versus life imprisonment is undeniable. According to a 1992 study by the Dallas Morning News, the cost of the average death penalty case in Texas is three times the cost of imprisonment in a single cell at the highest security level for forty years. Even more egregious, the burden of payment for these costs falls on Texas taxpayers. With the alternative of life without parole, arguably a worse and cheaper punishment, the continuation of capital punishment seems to have no benefit to society.
All of this money spent on executing inmates could potentially be placed into beneficial programs, such as the public school system or funding for mental health care (which would likely help prevent crime before it occurs). This would also eliminate the potential for wrongfully convicted inmates being put to death before exoneration- an error too grave to make when dealing with the preciousness of life.
Texas is stubbornly proud of its traditions, and while capital punishment may seem just, ranking as the number one state in a country with the highest execution rates among China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq leaves one in doubt of our current methods. When a function of government becomes a burden to society, it must be changed or done away with. It is time to send capital punishment to the gallows.
Check out my sources and decide for yourself:
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Death Penalty Information Center
Why Texas Is So Good at the Death Penalty
Blog post 6:
ReplyDeleteOn November 1, 2015 The Gerrymandering Blues blogged “Capital Punishment: A Burden to All Texans,” to depict and oppose Texas’s capital punishment law. Throughout her whole post, Sarah does an excellent job persuading her readers why Texas should stop capital punishment.
Sarah’s introduction provides a powerful statement that proclaims the theme of progression and change. The author stated, “Societies change over time and government must change its policies also, in order to reflect the will of the people,” to implement the idea that Texas needs to continue improving and updating its laws and practices. Sarah’s arguments thematically support the idea that capital punishment is an issue, and therefore requires change to make it a solution. Altogether, Sarah does a great job at continuously reminding her audience of the theme of progression and change and how Texans can change capital punishment for good.
The author uses multiple credible sources to make her argument reasonable and just. For example, the author uses information from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to explain the frequency of Texas capital punishment, and information from the Dallas Morning News to highlight the outrageous amount of tax dollars used to terminate people under capital punishment. Sarah’s arguments are also reasonable. The author identification of the cost of killing a criminal and how she proposes that those tax dollars could be distributed to funding other “beneficial programs” is a valid argument against capital punishment. The author’s efforts to propose alternative uses of capital punishment funds shows her commitment to solving social and economic issues facing Texas.
In conclusion, Sarah’s blog has definitely appealed to me and influenced my support on ending capital punishment once and for all.
The ideas of Texas residents have changed. We as the new generation of Texas should change the death penalty. In the article titled "Capital Punishment: A Burden to All Texans," by my colleague Sarah, she gives out a strong argument on why the death penalty is not a good punishment and why it should be part of the past.
ReplyDeleteShe gives out factual evidence to support her thesis. For example, her statements about putting someone in jail actually costing less meaning less money wasted. Sometimes we wrongly convict people because our criminal justice system is not perfect. The amount of Texas juries who favor the death penalty have gone down. Also the State of Texas has a very big percentage of the nations total death penalty sentences.
I agree with Sara we should help these people, help them before they commit crimes that could possibly get them to be in thas position. All this money wasted in such a long process should help our education programs. Helping our youth get educated can prevent them from committing crimes that could possibly get them in that situation one day. Killing someone has proven to solve nothing. The death sentence has been around for so long and has not brought down crime. So if the government keeps enforcing this punishment they will just cause more harm than good. Texans' tax money should not go to murdering people but to helping them.