When one looks around at a well-structured community, they think of a solid government. One thinks of a solid judicial system and friendly, hardworking members of the community as well. However, what can we do about those not so friendly members of society; the killers who have committed capital murders, the crimes so devastating, so cruel, so inhumane that one just cannot forgive them? That’s where capital punishment comes in. Capital punishment is the act of executing criminals who have committed one or more capital murders. This does not take into account people who committed manslaughter and or have been diagnosed a mental illness though. Lethal injections are, as a matter fact, a humane way to execute criminals and capital punishment deters criminal action and gets justice for the victim(s).

To begin, lethal injections are a safe, humane way to execute criminals (Pearce, Matt). Death penalty opposers argue that lethal injections are inhumane and are wrong. However, at executions, the criminals do not show any obvious signs of pain. Recently there was a new lethal injection method tested on a criminal on death row that took 20 minutes for the criminal to die a long, painful death. While I do believe that lethal injections are the smartest way to go about capital punishment, I also believe that new injections should be tested before use on criminals. I also believe that as long as the current lethal injection works that executioners should continue to use them. The lethal injections are in fact humane and offer death row criminals a quick and painless death as punishment for their crimes.

Moreover, capital punishment deters criminal activity. Capital punishment opposers point out that states without capital punishment tend to have lower crime rates than states that use capital punishment. While the statistics are there to back up that point, sometimes due to the length of time between conviction and execution, society forgets about the penalty for the crime. Capitol punishment is a more effective deterrent to crime if criminals executed as soon as their appeal process has been completed. The real impact deterrence has is on criminals making illegal actions (Bowman, Jeffery). The criminals in prison already will be much more impacted by capital punishment because they often hear when executions of people on death row take place. It deters these present criminals from committing capital murders for they do not want to suffer an execution for capital murder charges. That is where the real impact of deterrence lies.

Furthermore, capital punishment gets justice for those families, whose relative or relatives were killed in heinous crimes (Pearce, Matt). Capital punishment is much like a phrase from the Bible that says, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. The murderer who committed the capital murder (again excluding those who have been diagnosed with a mental illness that affected their brain and or those who committed manslaughter) deserve to be killed for their heinous crimes and to be removed from our society. They killed the victim and this causes family members to grieve and stress. The fact that the killer is gone from the world brings comfort to the family for a little while, at least during the period of time that the family is rebuilding from their loss. This comfort can also come from the fact that the killer can no longer harm any other people and the killer will not get the chance to murder anyone else.

Without a shadow of a doubt, capital punishment is a benefit to society and does, as a matter of fact save lives by deterring criminals and removing that criminal from society. Capital punishment also brings justice and is the most humane way to execute criminals. Capital punishment has been around for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years and will surely be around for thousands more.