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until they are up for parole.

Many convicts have been in the system for much of their lives. When I watch television programs that take you inside some of America's prisons, I wonder if some of them could have been helped before it was too late. I sit and wonder how many of them did not have to end up that way. How many of them were given up on early in life? Not everyone who suffered through a troubled childhood grows up to be a criminal, but when you are forgotten in the system; it's easy to stop believing in yourself. Some people give up on themselves when others give up on them. After that, committing a crime does not seem so unthinkable.

The death penalty is not an effective crime deterrent. All it does is push the problem under the rug so that society can claim there is nothing wrong with the justice system. People go on with their lives and condemn people to death while justifying it with "an eye for an eye". The problem is that to do so means becoming a murderer yourself.

I used to be for the death penalty all the way, no questions asked, back in high school. Now, I'm beginning to ask questions. If we sentence someone to death, are we condemning ourselves in the process? Is the death penalty really solving the problem of crime in today's society or are criminals simply ignoring it? Are some people so irredeemably wicked that they simply deserve to die?

The death penalty remains a tough issue for me to be completely for or against. In some cases, I am personally glad that the death penalty was imposed, though I feel guilt at times that I could be so relieved by another person's death. In other cases, I tend to look at it in scientific terms and wonder if the fields of psychology, sociology, and criminology could have benefited from studying certain individuals in more depth rather than losing them to the electric chair or gas chamber.

The death penalty has been used for centuries. Yet, we still live among serial killers, arsonists, bombers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, armed robbers, terrorists, and a number of other criminals. The death penalty is just another failed attempt to obliterate violent criminals from our midst.

There exists in humankind the primal urge to commit acts of violence. Like the animals we have struggled to separate ourselves from, we seem to co-exist in a world made up of predator and prey. In our world, the predator can sometimes become the prey.

We seem to have the power to give life and to take it away. When one takes it upon his or herself to "prematurely" end the life of another, that person is sometimes placed on trial with his or her life hanging in the balance. Either a single judge or a jury of peers decides that person's fate. A life for a life is used to condemn a person to death.

I've always found it strange that a group of people should be asked to sentence someone to death. What kind of society are we that we actually pick a group of people to shoulder that kind of responsibility and burden? What damage are we causing jurors, psychologically, when we place the death penalty on the table, essentially causing them to commit murder in the name of justice? To stop a murderer, do we have to create one in the process? Is the murderer and the jury that passes a death sentence both executioners locked in a vicious circle?

The death penalty, in reality, may be doing more harm than good. Perhaps society should begin facing its underlying problems instead of always trying to sweep them under the rug as if they are merely clutter in an otherwise pristine world.

Learn more about this author, Madison Starr.
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