istribution among the guilty is irrelevant to the morality of the punishment. The system is far from perfect but can be improved. In the past, women were much less likely to be executed than men, and we are all aware that if you have enough money to hire good lawyers, you have a better chance to evade punishment. Haag (ibid.) argues that recent data indicates that the discriminatory aspect against blacks was primarily due to capital punishment for rape. Additionally, in recent years, the once prevalent trend of more non-whites than whites being executed, and more men than women, seems to be reversing. For example, in recent months I recall reading about four persons executed in the United States, two were women, and one was a white male. Working to improve the criminal justice system so that everyone who deserves the death penalty gets it, would ensure justice and equality. Lastly, some would argue against the death penalty by claiming that our criminal justice system should be based on reform rather than punishment. Even without arguing specifically opposite this point, it is almost self-evident that the criminal who can be reformed is not the problem. The real problem is the criminal you cannot reform. It becomes simple to say, "just give him a life sentence". However, the problem is more complicated. Long prison terms mean large and costly institutions that must, sooner or later, be paid for by all of us. Some may argue that killing such a murderer violates his human rights and would suggest life imprisonment as a better alternative. Even from the point of view of the individual, natural life imprisonment as an alternative to capital punishment is apt to be no better than the substitution of a slow death for a quick one. In both cases, a convicted murderers only way of paying his debt to society is through dying.In this paper, I have argued that the death penalty is a necessary form of retribution--the only adequate means of expressi...
