Death penalty

Nowadays, we have to face the news about mass murders or terrorist attacks,
mainly in the US, quite often, e.g. in classes or shopping centres. This is the
time when death penalty theme come into focus. Does the state have a right to
end somebody’s life? There are those, who argue that people who are able to
kill a human being, deserve to be killed themselves according a well-known
principle eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Lets begin the discussion with the advantages of death penalty.
Firstly, let us take a look on a principle of detering (warning off) the criminals
from commiting murders. Some people believe, that potential criminals who
will see others being sentenced to death for their criminal activities, will put
down a knife or gun. In my opinion, this will not work, because person who
don’t have any restraints to kill, are not afraid of losing their life.
Secondly, and this maybe is the strongest pros argument, is a protection of
society. This means that by sentencing a killer to death a state saves lives of
innocent people.
Finally, there is an economic point of view, saying that long-term or life
imprisonment is more expensive, than death sentence. But according to
experts in this field, this is not always true.
Despite the fact, that death sentence seems effective on the face of it, there
are also disadvantages.
The most important one being that the death sentence is definitive and cannot
be revoked. This coupled with the fact the history knows not a few cases of
miscarriage of justice or innocent people pleading guilty should be a serious
reason for not approving it.
To sum up, from my point of view, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
It is better for the society to sentence a criminal to life imprisonment and pay
the expenses, than possibly decide to kill an innocent person.