The Death Penalty Isn't Working


posted October 23, 2008

The recent Chattanoogan. com survey asked the question should Rejon
Taylor get the death penalty for killing Guy Luck? Eighty four
percent of the respondents answered yes. I answered no.

I am pro-life yet have seen very few respondents at any of the pro-
life meetings or have ever visited the AAA Women's Service on Vance
Road. Yet we live in a very high pro-life area.

I am also against war unless attacked. We were not attacked by Iraq,
yet this President acted with moral indignation and his followers
insist on killing even today knowing he has murdered over 600,000
Iraqis and over 4,000 of our bravest and finest servicemen and women.

The hijackers on 9/11 were 16 from Saudi Arabia and three from other
Middle Eastern countries, but none from Iraq. Yet the killing continues.

Why am I against the death penalty? It just doesn't work and it is
taking another life to prove what? This simple reality has been
grossly overlooked and today people primitively think that
competition, greed and corruption are "hardwired" elements of human
behavior. And in turn, we must have prisons, police and hence a
hierarchy of differential control in order for society to deal with
these "tendencies" . This is totally illogical and false.

The bottom line is that if you do change things fundamentally, you
must attack the root causes. Our present system just doesn't work.
Our system of punishment is outdated and archaic and unproductive.

Has execution stopped murder? No. What it does do is give people a
chance to jump up and down and cheer the murder's execution. But does
it stop future murders?

This is backwards thinking. A truly sane society, which is what we
are and how our value system was created, would ask the murderer why?
And learn the reasons behind his or her violent actions. Simple, why
you do what you did? This information would then go to an information
center and be researched. It would then be concluded as to why and
used to stop such conditions from occurring in the future.

It is time to stop the patchwork. It is time to begin a new approach
to crime, which needs to be updated. Sadly, society today is still
largely based on outmoded, superstitions dispositions and
resolutions. Our prisons are beyond capacity. We spend billions
housing prisoners and no one has asked the question why? Maybe it's
time to stop and think.

Chuck Mehan
East Ridge
cbm2006@comcast. net

http://www.chattano ogan.com/ articles/ article_137645. asp