Capital Punishment The Case For Abolition by Adam Hurter One of the greatest injustices in U.S. history is taking place with the consent of most citizens: capital punishment. The death penalty is inherently racist; wildly expensive; used to kill innocent people, children, and the mentally retarded; and does not deter crime. Presently, the death penalty is legal in thirty-eight states and has been used in thirty-four of them. The death penalty is a permanent punishment in a legal system that can be described as imperfect at best. Twenty-three times this century people have been put to death who were later proven innocent. Who knows how many others' innocence has never been discovered. Many other innocent people have been released from Death Row, very close to the permanence of the electric chair. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reintroduced the use of capital punishment in 1976 after a twelve-year ban, there have been 486 executions. At least twenty-four executions have been botched. Furthermore, many states have atrocious conviction rates. For instance, Florida has executed forty-three people since '76 and has wrongly convicted nineteen. Illinois has executed eleven people and wrongly convicted nine. These are not encouraging numbers when dealing with state-sanctioned murder. In addition, the death penalty is consistently applied in a racist manner. Ninety percent of the people U.S. government prosecutors seek to execute are Black or Latino. Three out of four people waiting to be executed in federal and military prisons are African-American. Those accused of killing whites are also more likely to be sentenced to death. In Mississippi, killers of whites are five times more likely to receive the death penalty; in Maryland they are seven times as likely. Why do we continue to support racist execution? One reason is that many people are led to believe that capital punishment is a more economical way to handle convicted murderers. On the contrary, the death penalty costs taxpayers ludicrous sums of money. An average death penalty case-from arrest to execution, including appeals-costs anywhere from one to three million dollars, according to government studies. Independent studies have placed that figure at about seven million dollars. Life imprisonment, including time of incarceration, costs taxpayers about $500,000. This money could undoubtedly be better used to improve the country as a whole. This economic relationship is very visible in certain instances. In 1995, New York brought back the death penalty, though experts estimated that it would cost the state about $118 million annually. That same year, state leaders complained about a small budget and massively cut funds for public higher education and health care. Meanwhile, the the death penalty is being used in more and more cases. The U.S. has shown that it has no qualms about killing children. Only six countries today have ever executed children: Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, and the United States. The U.S. leads leads the pack in the number of children executed.. Every major international human rights treaty prohibits the execution of people under eighteen years old. In the U.S., twelve states have no age minimum for capital punishment. That's not all. We also execute the mentally retarded. Currently, over 300 mentally retarded people sit on Death Row. Over thirty-one mentally retarded people have been executed since 1976, nineteen over the last five years. Ironically, more mentally ill people are on the streets now than ever before because government mental health funds have decreased significantly. These funds have to be cut, politicians claim- there just isn't enough money. Mayeb they're spending too much on capital punishment. Rather than attempting to help the mentally ill, we as a society wait until they do something horrible, and then kill them. It is a grotesque method of clearing away those who society doesn't want. The death penalty also does not deter crime. Nations with capital punishment continue to have higher murder rates than those without it. The five non-death penalty countries with the highest homicide rates average 21.6 homicides per 1,000 people. The five countries with the death penalty with the highest homicide rates average 41.6 homicides per 1,000 people. Sixty-seven percent of law enforcement officers do not feel that capital punishment decreases the rate of homicides. Indeed, it doesn't. There is still hope to end capital punishment. The government faces intense pressure from grassroots anti-death penalty groups and human rights organizations. And some states refuse to participate in the nonsense entirely. These states realize what the rest of us must come to understand: the death penalty is unjust and harmful to society. Politicians take pro-death penalty positions to appear "hard on crime." Activism and word-of-mouth could change that by swinging public opinion. Killing to punish for killing is immensely hypocritical and does not succeed in its goal. Eradicating it completely will bring us one step closer to peace.