The death penalty should be offered as a form of punishment.

I would like to start out by refuting what you said about my statistic about deterrence of crime. The Death Penalty Information Center (deathpenaltyinfo.org) used populations from the US Census estimates for the year and then the murder rates were taken from the FBI's "Crime in the United States". It was then calculated to be per 100,000 people, and then averaged the numbers found. They did not use "unrealistic and misleading averages". You also claimed that because of the difference in numbers of the states that the average could be "misleading at best", but an average negates the number of states because you divide by that number. To ensure the credibility of that point further I found an alternative source saying essentially the same thing, that the death penalty does not deter crime in the least. The following is from a quote from an article in The Huffington Post by Cassy Stubbs entitled "The Death Penalty Deterrence Myth: No Solid Evidence That Killing Stops the Killing": "Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on statistics, testified to Congress that the Emory and Denver studies were "fraught with numerous technical and conceptual errors," and "fail[ed] to reach the demanding standards of social science."" (The Emory and Denver studies are two frequently cited studies which claim that the death penalty deters crime) "John Donohue, Yale Law School professor and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Justin Wolfers, Wharton School of Business professor and Research Affiliate at the NBER, analyzed the same data used in the Emory and Denver studies, as well as other studies by the same researchers and many other nationwide reports. They found that if anything, executions increase homicides, concluding: "The view that the death penalty deters is still the product of belief, not evidence ... On balance, the evidence suggests that the death penalty may increase the murder rate."" Both these quotes illustrate what my original statistic comparing states with the death penalty to those without did, that capital punishment does not stop people from killing. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com...) You also asked what is to stop the convicted from killing again in prison. The answer is to move them to a higher security prison. If they are going to attempt to commit more crimes even while under lock and key then we must decrease the opportunity for them to harm people. Maximum security prisons are there for just this sort of situation. Solitary confinement should effectively cut off any attempts of the convicted from harming other inmates or guards. If they never have contact with people, they cannot very well harm other people. A description of the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution tells of how the inmates are only let out for one hour each day and are otherwise kept in solitary confinement. The one hour out of their cells each day is for showering and a slight amount of time in the recreation area. In their cells they have no form of entertainment whatsoever. For 23 hours out of each day they can sit and stare at the wall, or maybe stare at the bars, or even stare at the ceiling! A facility such as this would effectively prevent the inmates form committing any acts against guards or other inmates. (http://www.state.tn.us...) I don't understand how you can have unyielding faith in our justice system ("the rigorous court proceedings usually eliminates any reasonable doubt from the case and more often than not proves undeniable guilt") one moment and then be totally incredulous as to its ability to function the next ("in our current justice system it is far from uncommon to see these people back on the streets after a few years"). Really, neither is true. While it is true that our justice system has its flaws, it is not incompetent to the point of letting people walk who have committed violent, undeniable crimes. At the same time it is NOT 99% effective and to think it is so would be incredibly idealistic. The truth lies somewhere in between. We must create a system for punishment that reflects that. It must allow for the punishment of criminals by detaining them and cutting them off from society so as to prevent crimes from being repeated. This can be through higher security prisons and no chance of parole. It must also allow for those people who are wrongly convicted to have a chance to regain what they rightly deserve, their freedom. We can never, in good conscience, allow even one innocent person to be sacrificed because of our fear that someone has a glimmer of a chance to escape from prison. Steps can be taken to make it nearly impossible for that to happen, but we can never ensure that an innocent person would never be killed if the death penalty is used. Death is the ultimate verdict which neither the government, nor the people have the right to sentence. If you make the choice to take from someone their most precious gift, their life, then that is murder. It is never ok to take someone's life, no matter the circumstances. Furthermore, it is not valuing the convicted's life over the victim's. We are not saying that they are more important or deserve to live more than the deceased; we are merely recognizing that EVERYONE deserves to live. In conclusion, I ask that the audience thinks very hard on both sides and votes, not based upon their preconceived notions of the topic, but only upon the arguments presented by both sides. Thank you for the debate, Richard89; it has been truly a pleasure.