While keeping the Death Penalty is necessary for the justice system, keeping it in its current form is unreasonable, expensive, and biased. With all of the massive controversy going on in the world today, between Gaza, climate change, and the presidential election, a topic like the death penalty goes generally unaddressed. Though there have been many reforms and variations of the death penalty throughout the many years of human history, we still need capital punishment, no matter how barbaric it may seem. Even though the federal government abolished it in 1972 after Furman v. Georgia, many states still have it.

One of the main reasons we as a society have capital punishment is because some people are either beyond reform, or because as the student newspaper The Reflector says, “There are some crimes that are, frankly, so terrible that there is no other suitable form of punishment.” In a paper titled “In Defense of the Death Penalty” written by Judge Paul Cassel about why the death penalty is a necessary part of the world, the Judge talks about a death row convict named Kenneth Allen McDuff who was freed after Furman v. Georgia, in which he says, “A jury convicted McDuff of the crimes, and recommended death. The judge agreed, imposing a capital sentence that was later affirmed by the Texas courts. McDuff narrowly escaped execution three times before the United States Supreme Court, in its 5–4 decision, invalidated all death penalties in 1972. As a result, McDuff escaped execution and was ultimately released by Texas authorities in 1989, producing the killing spree that left Colleen Reed and many other women dead.” McDuff was someone who was beyond any help or saving.  After he was released, he immediately went back to his old crimes.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization formed around helping inmates on death row, “African Americans make up 41 percent of people on death row and 34 percent of those executed, but only 13 percent of the population is Black.” This is partially because of the history of the death penalty in the USA. Many executions in the late 1800s and early 1900s were vigilante lynchings done to African Americans. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, “More than eight in 10 lynchings between 1889 and 1918 and legal executions since 1976 have occurred in the South.” These statistics show how biased this current system is.

A big argument against the death penalty is the fact that it does not work as a crime deterrent. However, in counties with higher numbers of death row convicts, there are higher crime rates. This is because if there is more crime, there are more offenders. The main problem with this argument is the idea that capital punishment is not a crime deterrent to hold over the heads of petty thieves and muggers. No, the death penalty should be reserved for only the most serious and heinous crimes against humanity. A person should not lose their life trying to feed themselves in low-income areas or because of a crippling addiction. The only people who should ever find themselves under the threat of death row are those who kill and rape for no reason other than amusement.

While the death penalty is a relic of the near past, it has shown itself still necessary in the modern day and will probably still be used into the future. While some people say we need to get rid of capital punishment, I believe we just need to change some things about it such as ease of sentencing. The death penalty can and will be continually used as an excuse for racially biased judgments. Just because it does not work as well as it could does not mean we should get rid of it. We just need to put in some work.