Some crimes should be punishable by death, as long as a much higher standard of proof is upheld.

I shall be rebutting them one by one, and of course, I'll be putting my sources at the end of the post. Ladies and gentlemen, let us proceed:Pro argues by saying that the death penalty offers social benifits; the first one being peace of mind. I agree that the possibility of a prisoner escaping exists, but statistics show that the odds of that happening are extremely low (1). '6,530 people escaped or were AWOL from state prisons. That was a littlemore than one-half of 1 percent of the total population of 1,100,224 state prisoners. 'It doesn't end there. Most of these "breakouts" are usually recovered. In average, 10000 escapees result in 9000 of these recovered within the same year (1). And that was statistical data from 1998. As for the present? It should be known that prison escapes are declining due to technology breakthrough (2): As it is seen from this chart, there's in average FOUR escapes per TEN THOUSAND PRISONER (2013 data). That's a number so low, that the chances of being attacked by a prisoner that has escaped from detention are nigh ZERO (You may find the full chart with detailed numbers in the source n°2). Now the question to ask is whether it is worth it to apply the death sentence when the rist of prison breakthroughs is so low. I will give my based opinion WHILE rebutting the rest of his aruguments. The second argument provided is a classic. Ah, the theory of "example". Pro states that the death penalty serves as a deterrent for potentional criminals, and as an example to murderers. I completely and categorically disagree with that notion, and I will state why: Far, far from scaring away criminals and deterring murderers, the death penalty desensitizes the masses to death, and I have many anecdotal evidences, as well as scientifical and statistical evidence to prove that (more on that later). Not only that, but the "example theory" makes no sense whatsoever seeing how the death penalty is currently organized. If you really want the death penalty to be "deterring", it has to be seen by the masses. Bring back the medieval age, Farinacci, tormentors, dismembrements, public torching, yada yada; it is a requirement to make the theory work. But in the US and other countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty. .. you miserably behead or hang a poor man in a deserted boulevard with no one passing, no witnesses (aside from the family of the victim). As for the evidence, let us look at a countries that practiced the death penalty, and how that practice has inevitably contributed to desensitize the masses: France. Not only did the death penalty not reduce the crime rates compared to its neighbour countries that did abolish it, but it resulted in extremely barbaric scenes due to to the desensitization of the masses. Victor Hugo, a french poet and the lead of the romantic scene, gave us a lot of temoinages of his time, alongside some other authors as well. 1832, 5 mars, during the execution of Louis Camus, the public who assisted (because capital punishment was public at the time) swayed towards the guilottine and started dancing around the headless body, and some were said to be "playing football" with the head. And that's only one temoinage, as he has left countless more as well. Bottom line, everytime there was a public capital execution, the people of France feisted, sold places to assist as if it was the country circus, dansed around the guillotine, et cetera (3). ALSO; The scientific conclusion is clear. The death penalty does not deter homicide. No study has ever found a deterrent effect, no matter how skewed the research question was in favor the death penalty. Pro has failed to abide by the burden of proof because on study has found any connection whatsoever between decreasing criminality rates and the death penalty. I challenge Pro to prove me otherwise. Actually, studies suggest the exact contrary! The brutalization effect suggests that when violence is condoned via the death penalty, more violence occurs. Homicide rates tend to increase around the time of executions, due to legitimation, desensitization, and imitation. The death penalty makes society more dangerous by further increasing violence through the brutalization effect (4). As for the cost arguments, I must say that Pro is flat out wrong. The death penalty is quite expensive and life imprisonment can be cheaper (5). Over the lifetime of a case, executing prisoners can be three times as expensive as life in prison, primarily due to the higher costs of capital punishment trials, automatic appeals, and the heightened security on death row with lower staff-to-prisoner ratios. Commuting all death sentences to life in prison would save hundreds of millions of dollars per year in the U. S. and many billions over the coming decades. sources are here: . https://pastebin.com...