“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.” -Desmond Tutu
The ultimate punishment to any crime is the Death Penalty. It cannot be reversed, cannot be reconsidered, and cannot be righted with empty apologies. Death is the ultimate punishment, and quite frankly the most absurd. A life for a life, justification of a revenge masked as “justice”. However, if the law forbids murder, frowns upon it, is disgusted by it, then why is murder also considered a rightful “punishment”?
It’s impractical to believe the government makes no mistakes, that in court, the jury is always right. Convictions can be wrong, and the evidence may not turn up for several months, possibly years. Years of people’s lives taken away from them falsely. If someone is sentenced to death, and then later found innocent, how can that be righted? This person has lost not just time, but their entire life. It cannot be reversed, it cannot be reconsidered, and cannot be righted with empty apologies.
We are constantly clouded by the true horror of one’s crimes. Sometimes it is hard to see passed that, to think clearly, and make a decision that is justified and fulfilling. Perhaps jail time seems petty, and it may not satisfy the justice we seek as humans. I personally disagree with putting someone to death, especially when mistakes can so easily be made. Ultimately a person is judged after their death, by something greater than human understanding.
Imprisonment, nowadays, means to keep the alleged criminals off the streets. It’s for the safety of the people, and remains, agreeably, justifiably unsatisfying. How is this fixed? The answer changes from person to person, and may never fully satisfy everyone’s definition of “justice”. My idea is simple: imprisonment to fit the crime. Different levels of crime will match with different levels of prison. At each stage, the criminal must work. Community service of some form, “paying their debts” in some fashion. Even if the accused end up innocent, their lives have been spent helping their community. It may not be contrapasso, punishment fitting the crime, but like I’ve said before a person’s true judgment does not come from us, the people.
The topic of the Death Penalty is not a simple one, and lies greatly in gray areas. People’s opinions vary with personal experience, morals, religions, and education. But it is a topic that must be discussed, and in my opinion, seriously reconsidered. For the sake of our country, and the sake of innocent lives, we should consider not continuing the game of life or death. The consequences cannot be reversed, cannot be reconsidered, and cannot be righted with empty apologies.
This blog post is an official entry for the <a href=”http://www.joshuapondlaw.com/scholarship”>Law Blogger’s Scholarship</a>, sponsored by The Law Office of Joshua Pond, <a href=”http://www.joshuapondlaw.com/”>http://www.joshuapondlaw.com</a>.
