Should Death Penalty be abolished

Pro is simply incorrect that "The United States," either as a government or as a people "spreads a message telling others that killing someone is wrong." Rather, the message spread by the US and many others around the world is that killing INNOCENT people is wrong, not killing in itself. I happen to be a Barbadian, however, and my government has not put anyone to death in a long time, but they reserve the right to do so. Yes, Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," but truth isn't decided by what Gandhi says. If Ghandi had said "murder is OK" would that make it right? If you want Ghadi to be authoritative in this debate, then can I bring in Moses as well, who said "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"? (Exodus 21:24) Truth isn't decided by quoting your favorite religious figure, is it? Ghandi once said "that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race" over the Indians (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol. I, p. 105) So he himself shared the racism of his time, and it only his own bitter experiences at the hands of whites that changed his mind. What becomes of his authority if he changes his mind again? How silly to base morality on one man's opinion. "Gandhi's war recruitment campaign brought into question his consistency on nonviolence." http://www.google.com... So Ghandi was not even consistent with his moral values. This same source reports that "In 1906 Gandhi, although married and a father, vowed to abstain from sexual relations. In the 1940s, in his mid-seventies, he brought his grandniece Manubehn to sleep naked in his bed as part of a spiritual experiment in which Gandhi could test himself as a "brahmachari." Several other young women and girls also sometimes shared his bed as part of his experiments.[181] Gandhi's behaviour was widely discussed and criticised by family members and leading politicians, including Nehru. Some members of his staff resigned, including two editors of his newspaper who left after refusing to print parts of Gandhi's sermons dealing with his sleeping arrangements. But Gandhi said that if he wouldn't let Manu sleep with him, it would be a sign of weakness.[182] Gandhi discussed his experiment with friends and relations; most disagreed and the experiment ceased in 1947." Would you have done this experiment? So much for Ghandi's opinion on morals and values, who is he to tell us the death penalty is wrong? Pro says killing another human "is an inhumane way to treat other humans," so is life in prison, humane? Human means "characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed." http://www.google.com... Locking a person away from society, from friends and family, without hope of getting married, or having kids, is not humane. People who spend even a few years in prison come out with all kinds of horror stories. Prison itself is not humane, so if Pro's argument against the death penalty is that its inhumane, he must also call for the abolition of prison itself. Indeed, I would like Pro to tell us what kind of punishment for murder he would consider "humane"? Women get raped in prison, that's just one of the horrors. "In 2008 [according to recent Bureau of Justice Statistics], more than 216,600 people were sexually abused in prisons and jails"overall, that"s almost six hundred people a day- twenty-five an hour"...In 2005, "the Office of the Inspector General and the DOJ released a report documenting widespread sexual abuse by prison employees nationwide, noting that only 37% had faced some kind of legal action. Of those, " walked away with no more than probation. It took all of this evidence for the BOP to finally criminalize sexual contact as a felony in 2006, so that guards can actually face up to five years in prison".[24] However, "when authorities confirmed that corrections staff had sexually abused inmates in their care, only 42% of those officers had their cases referred to prosecution; only 23% were arrested, and only 3% charged, indicted, or convicted. Fifteen per cent were actually allowed to keep their jobs".[19] Despite such legislative progress, women are fully dependent on the guards for basic necessities and privileges, and in many states, guards have access to inmates" personal history files which can empower them to threaten prisoners" children if the women retaliate.[25] Female inmates who retaliate also face the loss of good time for early parole in addition to prolonged periods of disciplinary segregation, and detrimental write-ups, which further deters acts of resistance.[19] The fear incited by such threats as well as the concern that no one will believe them or that no one really cares can successfully silence women. Experience of sexual abuse in prison can greatly impede women"s capacity to reintegrate into society upon release." http://www.google.com... All this shows that prison itself is inhumane, so should we abolish that too? If not, then being inhumane can be no good argument against the death penalty. It's extremely difficult to find a punishment that is characterized by tenderness and compassion, and yet this is what Pro wants murders to get - humane punishment. Is there such a thing? Question: should not the penalty be proportionate to the crime? Even if you are that one murder won't do it, its not hard to imagine that some crimes would. Ten murders? 100 murders? Genocide? At some point, the death penalty becomes a balanced punishment against the crime. So even if you rule out capitol punishment in some cases, you can't rule it out in all of them. To claim that no crime whatever could ever justify capitol punishment would deny the very principle of punishment fitting the crime. It would mean that Hitler couldn't be punished anymore than the bank robber who serves life in prison. Because some innocent people are executed, Pro says we should abolish capitol punishment, but innocent people also go to prison, so on that basis should we abolish prison as well? Being dead and free from suffering, may even be more desirable to the innocent man who is wrongfully convicted than spending life in horrors of prison for something he didn't do. Pro's argument would mean removing all forms of punishment on the grounds that some, even many who are punished will be innocent. The cost is irrelevant because justice isn't up for sale to the lowest bidder! Cheaper doesn't mean fair! It would cost less to imprison murders for a single day, that says nothing about the fairness of the punishment. Furthermore, Pro's statistics have been found to be dubious by recent research. http://www.google.com... So, anyone who kills someone unjustly, deserves to die, and in cases where we can prove with a high degree of certainty that someone is guilty of such, they deserve to die! There is no good argument against the death penalty.