by committing a murder, I mean knowingly and willingly taking someone's life for no legal or defensive reason

December 7, 1984 kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 9-year-old Springfield, Oregon girl. He had been convicted of murder once before in Texas, but not executed.

Consider the family and friend of a victim, they actually can't feel completely safe knowing that the person stole the life of someone they care about is sleeping somewhere else

I’m interested in this topic because I’m scared that what happened to many people and even families who were killed by escaped murderers or killers who simply got out of the prison could happen to me or to the people who I care about .

So, in this speech, I’ll provide brief history about the death penalty, then I’ll discuss some reasons to keep the death penalty, and finally I will refute some of the popular arguments against death penalty.

History of death penalty

Eighteenth Century BCThe first established death penalty laws was back in the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon. And BTW this code, which called Hammurabi's Code, is one of the first written codes of law in recorded history, and this code followed the philosophy of "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth".Death sentences were done by many ways such as, crucifixion, boiling, beheading, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement.

Tenth CenturyAnd specifically in Britain, hanging was the usual method of execution

Sixteenth CenturyFollowed that in the sixteenth century about 72 thousand people have been executed under the reign of Henry VIII

AmericaWhen the European came to America, they brought the practice of capital punishment. In 1608 was the first recorded execution in America of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia. And that was because he was found to be a spy for Spain.Nowadays, 33 states still have the death penalty law, and Oregon one of them. And 17 states without the death penalty law such as New York and Illinois, which just recently abolished it. However the federal government still uses the death penalty, so the entire U.S use it for federal crimes.

lethal injection - currently the most common form of execution

Reasons to keep the death penalty

Lowers the crimes rate

It’s just common sense, If a murderer know that if he kills he will be punished by the most severe punishment which is killing him, he will think a thousand time before he commit his crime.According to professor Isaac Ehrlich, each additional execution prevents about seven or eight people from committing murder.

(2003) Clemson U. Professor Shepherd found that each execution results, on average, in five fewer murders.

Protect innocent people

There are many cases in which convicts have committed more murders after being released. Today I tried to find how many convicts commit another crimes after releasing them or by escaping from the prison and I was shocked by the huge list that I saw. Some of them escape to kill a whole family including children and infants.And I was like, how many chances are these criminals given?! They don’t care about other’s lives so why do we care about their lives.

The prisoners that are in prison for crimes other than murder should feel safeAnd actually it’s not just murderers who get out of the prison, some of them are even terrifying inside the boarder of prisons. There are many murders that happen behind the bars simply because a murderer will spend the rest of his life in prison and thinks that he has nothing to lose.

For example have anyone heard of Aryan Brotherhood? It’s a gang that consist of about 300 members inside prison and thousand of associates out of prison. Can you imagine that this one gang is responsible for more than 20% of the murder cases that happen inside prison. All that power that this gang have got because none of the most powerful leaders received a death sentence.

All those reasons bring us to one big reason to keep the death penalty is to accomplish justice.Everyone has the right in safe environment and that’s in this case by deterring murderers using the capital punishment law.

Refute arguments against death penalty

Some people might say it costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life would you prefer to put these money to execute murderers and make a safe environment or to feed them and giving them the chance to possibly kill other innocent people. Why should resources be wasted to keep a person who doesn’t care about the sanctity of human life alive?

And anyway I wonder how people talk about money in such cases related to people lives. Opponent of death penalty also might argue that in many cases innocent people are accused with false crimes. However, new technology (DNA testing) allows a greater assurance that a mistake won't be made in convicting a person of the death penalty.

in conclusion, the death penalty should be fully legalized, for justice, for victims and their families and to send out a clear message to all people who believe they can get away with their crimes