"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."" It is one of the most known verses in the Christian Bible. For many, it is interpreted simply as revenge. If someone deliberately takes a person's life, then that person's life should be taken to create justice. But is this really how the verse was meant to be interpreted? For too many people in this country, the answer is "yes."" I believe these points of views are mostly based on ignorance. Most Americans gladly support the death penalty without even thinking of opposing it. Capital punishment has been used since biblical times, but hasn't proven that it is worth more then its consequences. This is why every industrialized, developed country has given up on it. Everyone except the United States.
Capital punishment should be abolished. I feel that the majority of those who support the death penalty are not aware of many important facts and statistics, which if they were aware of would dramatically affect their views. There are a few issues that I find very unsettling. For example, the risk of executing an innocent person. Our judicial system is not perfect, it can, has, and will make mistakes. That alone makes anyone think twice about using the death penalty. In 2002 seventy-one inmates were executed, five more than the year before. Of last years executions thirty-three were done in the state of Texas, by far more than any other state. Fifty-three were white and eighteen were black. Sixty-nine were men and two were women. All executions except one were carried out by lethal injection. At the end of 2002 there were 3,557 prisoners under the sentence of death in our country, twenty fewer than the year before. Since the Supreme Court has reinstated the death penalty in 1976, white inmates have made up more than half of .
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the number of people under sentence of death. At years end, of 2002, the youngest inmate on death row was eighteen while the oldest was eighty-seven (Capital Punishment Statistics pg 1-2).
