Capital punishment is not a deterrent because all the states that have the death penalty don't insitute the punishment quick enough. Yes, there should be a time frame for the criminals to exhaust all their appeals, however; sitting on Death Row for 20 years at the tax payers expense is no deterrent.

In the Good Ole days, if you were convicted of a heinous crime and you were to be hanged; trust me, you were going to hang in a couple of days. The only criminals that were housed in prisons were the petty criminals. There was no Death Row. People thought twice about committing murder because they knew the outcome would be swift and final.

Today, criminals have it pretty good in prison. They have pool tables, Tv, weights, exercise yards and they are fed and have medical care; and they can get a college education, all courtesy of the taxpayers. They even get paid to work in certain parts of the prison. In the old days, you sat in a 4x6 cell until disposition of your case. No frills. I'm sure some of the criminals back then would just love our system today.

Very few states (Texas for one), really get with the executions. Even that being said, everytime an inmate is slated for death, you have a menagerie of do-gooders standing outside of the prisons stating this is cruel and unusual punishment. Personally, what they did was cruel and unusual punishment to their victims. It even states in the Bible, "an eye for an eye."

Even "the needle" is considered cruel. I'm sorry, but they are given an anethetic that puts them to sleep before the real stuff is injected. That convict doesn't feel a thing; whereas, the people that they killed felt every painful second of their torture and demise.

If you expect murder to stop or even slow down; the people must change the laws to exact swift punishment so that anyone thinking about committing those crimes will be delt with immediately. I can remember a time when the age group killing people was above 30, now it's kids in school. Why? Because there is no deterrent to drive home that we will not tolerate this behavior. If your child is out there torturing animals and killing their classmates at 12, what do you think he's going to be doing at 20?

Kids today think this is some kind of a game, that nothing will happen to them outside of probation from the family courts. A kid at 12 knows right from wrong unless the parents have been absolute idiots. Then again, that's another story for another time. I believe executions should be immediate and should be televised so that the kids understand that this is no joke and there will be consequenses for their actions; and that any crime is wrong.

Learn more about this author, Nanette Piotrowski.
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