Being in jail would still punish these criminals, but we wouldn't have to take away the sacred gift of life. Also the very basis of Buddhism is compassion and meditation. The Dalai Lama says that compassion is what leads us to happiness. I know that God wouldn't want anyone to inflict pain on another like what a person being executed has to deal with, or the suffering that is brought onto the families of those who are being executed. Brennan says, " Death is today an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity. No other existing punishment is comparable to death in terms of physical and mental suffering" (488).
The person being put to death may have taken a life, but taking another's life does not solve anything. The government needs to realize that what it is doing is wrong. There is nothing moral about inflicting death upon anyone, no matter what he or she has done. It is sad that our society has such little respect for the human race. It seems like sometimes people just don't think about what they are actually doing. The taking of a human life is just not sensible.
The death penalty is an unnecessary form of punishment that should not be used. Supporters of the death penalty, as stated in Brennan's essay say, " its validity depends upon the existence of a system in which the punishment of death is invariably and swiftly imposed" (491). Everyone knows that the death penalty process is extremely far from being swift. With the wait for trials and re-trials, and not to mention all of the .
appeals, the execution process lasts for years. Expensive is a more fitting characteristic of the death penalty. It has been proven time and time again that it costs more of taxpayers" hard earned money to execute a criminal then to keep him or her in prison for life. Being in prison for the rest of ones life is worse than being killed. If we truly want to punish our criminals, then we should keep them in prison.