Death Penalty

            A subject of contention and strife is the death penalty.  Do we or don’t we.  Do we never use it or only sometimes.  What will be the determinate factor for using the death penalty or not using it?  It’s a conundrum.

             There is a belief that there is a direct connection between race, prison and the death penalty.  However, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/) the race of defendants executed are somewhat equal between Black/Hispanic and White/Other.  There are similar percentages of death row inmates as well.  However, there is an inequitable percentage in the race of victims where 76% of victims are white while 24% of victims are either Hispanic, Black or Other.   

From a moral position, it can be argued that there is a risk of executing the innocent or that there is no effective deterrent in killing someone as a form of justice or retribution and punishment.  Many advocate various alternatives.  Public opinion is equally split.

 What do we do with people who have committed heinous crimes?  Law enforcement faces many problems with these ultimate defendants from lack of resources to the defendant’s own problems of drug/alcohol abuse, family problems, mental illness, lack of education and gangs.  There are complaints for those who are prisoners of our supermax facilities as well centering on the practice that these inmates are kept in solitary confinement and never allowed to interact with any of the other inmates. (Harpers Magazine/February 2012, p.19)

Given all the pros and cons for and against the death penalty, I believe there is a truly useful purpose for using this form of punishment.  However, given today’s current use of it and especially the enormous cost and time it takes to carry out a sentence I lean on the side of not using the death penalty currently. 

We must go back and create a better foundation for deterring people from committing such crimes in the first place.  Education is the first key.  The second key is adequate resources to combat drug/alcohol abuse, family violence and especially mental health.  If we truly put our best foot forward and are consistent over a long period of time, I believe we will see a positive change in the number of crimes committed. 

Currently, I believe that we should look at longer sentences and true life sentences as deterrents even if that means that some inmates are in a long term or permanent state of solitary confinement.  We should also revisit on a state by state basis the determining factors that would result in a capital case. Perhaps even before a person commits a death penalty crime, but is in our judicial system on lesser offences, we should be looking at addressing at least some of the factors that brought that person to this place.  Provide proper education, mental health care and drug or alcohol addiction help as a way to deter a return visit to our courts. We need to find a balance.   

The Most Important Issue in the 57th Presidential Election

With the Presidential primaries heating up, we are hearing the sound bites of the candidates on all the various topics.  From the debates to the campaign commercials, we hear elevator speeches on the themes viewed as important today, each designed to reach a particular demographic group.  Often we hear the typical negative campaign ads, which many say they do not like, but which clearly work very well.

Some tout that jobs are the most important issue or a change in the tax laws.  Various national policies are paraded out as being important. I think each of these issues are very important.  But I believe that ultimately the most important issue in our political arena is our country. 

How do we view our country?  Is it a place where everything is provided for you?  Does everyone need to have equal stuff?  These are some very serious questions.  Should certain opportunities be afforded certain people in order for them to achieve particular goals?  Who should determine what these goals should be?  Someone must make a decision.

Education is the core answer to how define our country.  Every state has a different view of education.  If you have ever moved from one state to another, you or at least your parents probably discovered that expectations are different from one state or town to another.  Various forms of standardization have been attempted and have failed.  It has been a one size fits all scenario. 

The people of this country need to redeem the education process in this country by becoming involved.  It needs to be recognized that everyone has talents.  Not only that, but everyone learns differently.  The current system of education dumps all children into one type of learning style.  That means many struggle.  Some students are just not expected to achieve much in their life and their educational opportunities reflect that.  Even if a student somehow manages to graduate high school, there are other challenges in the college arena. 

Studies have been conducted that show that if an educator believes that a group of students are high achievers that these students will do well in the class that this educator is teaching.  Similar studies have also shown that if an instructor believes that their students are low achievers, that the grades of these students will reflect this belief.

It has been reported that United States students do not do well in math and science. I have found that high school students are funneled into four years of math and three or four years of science in high school.  For those not familiar with the higher levels of science, these courses are largely math classes as well.  However, depending of course on your degree program, in college students do not always need to take anything close to these higher levels of math and science.  I propose that students in high school be given an opportunity to opt out of these higher levels of math after basic Algebra and general science in order to explore the various career areas they may be interested in.  In place of Algebra II or Trig, let’s introduce basic economics – something that everyone can use to run their everyday lives.  I believe that we have raised the bar too high for many students and that because of this there are more drop outs and fewer students going to college or even completing college.  If we create a good solid foundation, we can build a great country.

This is an official blog entry for the YourLocalSecurity.com <a href="http://yourlocalsecurity.com/scholarship">Blogging Scholarship</a>. If selected, I'll receive $1000 towards my college expenses in 2012. This scholarship is sponsored by <a href="http://yourlocalsecurity.com">YourLocalSecurity.com</a>