Arche decides:
"Capital Punishment: Just, Or Just Wrong?"
Roger Pertwee, a serial killer, has recently been sentenced to life imprisonment. Some are demanding the offender be executed while others abhor the idea.
1. "Well of course we should have the death penalty," says Gilray McLeod, a relative of one of Pertwee's victims. "Those who take life should forfeit their own! An eye for an eye and all that. The man does not deserve to live after what he did and that's that! I don't see why we should pay to keep such monsters in jail for years. Off with his head, I say! Off with his head! If violent crimes like rape and murder don't justify capital punishment then I don't know what does!"
2. "I don't see why we should have to pay for the upkeep of ANY criminals, frankly," says Florissa Liu, an upstanding and law-abiding citizen. "If we executed ALL criminals then we wouldn't need jails at all and no one would dare to break the law. I think it's a splendid idea, don't you?"
3. "Revenge is a terrible basis for a system that's supposed to endorse justice and lawfulness," says Kaspar Tuminsky, a social philosopher. "How can you possibly look on one man being killed and call him a murderer and then kill him and call it moral? And what happens when someone innocent is wrongly convicted? it's going to happen at some point and very probably already has. We cannot allow the death penalty and claim to be a civilized society, the two are mutually exclusive. We should ban capital punishment."
4. "I'm against capital punishment in general," says Sergeant Heather Elrick. "But there are some people who are just too dangerous to live, and I'm not talking about some nutter who gunned down his friends the night he lost a game of Go Fish, I'm talking traitors - those who would see our country fall to ruin for their own personal or political gain. I'm in favor of abolishing the death penalty, but we should reserve the right to execute those convicted of high treason."
5. Dismiss this issue