This is where the problem with a convict not seeing the death penalty as a punishment for their actions. Some people might say to give the murderer life in prison. This is hardly a punishment at all. (McCuuen 28) Today, due to overcrowding in prisons, many prisoners do not serve their full sentence. Another thing about todays prisons is that the prisoners get free meals, clothes, bed, electricity, air conditioning and heating, cable and many other luxuries that make it a comfortable place to live if you get used to the people. The death penalty should be given the day after conviction. Many people believe that criminals live in prison off other peoples hard earned money. The cost keeping a person on death row and the many years, sometimes as many is twenty-five is excessively high. With new methods of presenting evidence of D.N.A., the process needs to be sped up to make the death penalty to be a more effective deterrent.Deterrence is defined, as "the punishment should fit the crime."(Draper 72) Under this concept, the individual committing the crime and society are prevented from committing this action again. In the case of the death penalty, an individual kills another human and he is "punished" for it by death. Punishment is supposed to be a temporary penalization for a wrongful action. Death is far from temporary. One is to learn from one's mistakes. By imposing the death penalty, the individual does not learn from their mistakes and neither does society.Race continues to play an unacceptable and powerful role in capital punishment. In state death penalty cases, the race of the victim is much more important than the prior criminal record of the defender or the actual circumstances of crime. More than half of those inmates on death row are people of color, although they represent only 20% of the people of the U.S although they are about 6% of the U.S population, about 40% of those on death row are African American (Cole 33). The la...
