Death penalty not effective, expensive

The problem with capital punishment is not the morality of it, but its ineffectiveness. The argument that death penalty deters crime is based purely upon hypothetical musings, and there is considerable evidence against it. In Canada, the murder rate peaked in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty, and continued to decline for the next 10 years.

In Texas and Florida, two of the states with the most executions since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1979, have had an increase in the murder rate. The death penalty is a major drain on Illinois’ limited budget. Just in the past seven years, Illinois has spent over $100 million on the Capital Litigation Trust Fund, a sum that represents only a portion of the costs associated with implementing the death penalty in Illinois. This far outweighs the cost of incarcerating these murderers for life without parole.

The death penalty does not ensure justice because since 1976 more people on death row have been exonerated (20) than have been executed (12). Life without parole will protect us from the guilty and the innocent from execution. The United Nations and Amnesty International oppose the death penalty on the grounds that it violates human rights. Eighty percent of executions occur in China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. — look what company we are keeping.

The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law. Blacks and whites are murdered in roughly equal numbers, but 80 percent of death row cases involve white victims. There seems to be an iniquity here. As a proud democracy, the United States has the obligation to protect its citizens and set ideology aside to do what makes sense. I may just be a 17-year-old kid, but the facts speak for themselves.

Jessica Leighton

Itasca