Harsher Penalties For Violent Offenders Essays - Penology

Harsher Penalties for Violent Offenders? Should violent offenders be forced to face heavier penalties for their crimes? I think so. And that there should also be some reforms made to our penal system. The death penalty serves its purpose, it kills, instills fear, and generally wastes tax-payers time and money. I think we need stiffer penalties as an alternative to the death penalty because some of the penalties we have now are becoming ineffective, because a lot of them are very expensive, and because many violent offenders are repeat offenders. When a violent crime is committed, after the court proceedings are over, and if the accused is found guilty, the jury may rule that the criminal should be incarcerated for life. In which case the criminal is brought to a penitentiary, given a home, food ,clothing and possibly a job. I realize that there are people out there who believe that the system we are currently using is acceptable. In which case, they may argue that the criminals of today are just misguided and misunderstood. They are the ones who want less crime, and a hardly demeaning lifestyle for criminals. What is the point of having a life sentence? We have people who have killed in cold blood, sitting in jail to rot. This makes me think. Why should a criminal live better than I am? We give the criminals of today too much credit and not enough hard time. I would give them enough food to live on, a cot, toilet, and sink. if more people could read the college essay I read before writing this they would understand. The writer says in his paper that even though the death penalty is used in a state, there is not usually a change in the crime rate. This means that no one is afraid of it. If we would start punishing criminals, with punishments other than death or a life sentence or two, and stop hosting a criminal open house, we would stop spending so much money on rehabilitation. In a selection from my source, the author writes: ?Many moral concerns are brought up by the death penalty used as punishment. The Bible (Genesis 9:6) says, ?Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man may his blood be shed.' This classic argument in favor of the death penalty has usually been interpreted as a proper and moral reason for putting a murderer to death. ?Let the punishment fit the crime' is its secondary counterpart. Both quotes imply that the murderer deserves to die and it was his own fault for putting himself on death row... In Florida, it costs $3.2 million on each death row inmate, compared to about $535,000 for an average of 40 years for each prisoner sentenced to life. This is a huge amount of taxpayers' money, but the public looks at it as an investment in safety since these murderers will never kill again.? Most violent offenders are in fact, repeat offenders. The only reason is because we as Americans in our justice system don't place enough emphasis on the fact that once a crime is committed and a convicted felon is placed in prison, they can get out early for good behavior, or on a work release program; to commit their crimes again. Is it fair that a criminal is sentenced to 20 years, serves three or four out of that 20 and is released? Repeat offenders should not be released until there is a guarantee that they will not commit a crime again. Hopefully, by your reading this you have begun to think about why harsher penalties should be imposed on violent criminals. Hopefully, it has also answered any questions you might have had about repeat offenders, the ineffectiveness of our punishments on them, and the money tax-payers pay into our nations criminal offenders. Works Cited Page Capital Punishment a report by Tom Guilmette www.academic.marist.edu/guiltr/cappun.html