The motive for the attack was apparently retaliation against the US Government for the bloody end to a siege near Waco, Texas, in which 82 members of the Branch Davidian sect died.
In December 1997 his former army colleague Terry Nichols was convicted of manslaughter and conspiracy and sentenced to life in jail. A third man, Michael Fortier, confessed to knowing in advance about the bombing and was sentenced to 12 years after agreeing to be a key witness for the prosecution.
The execution of McVeigh is a good thing because he can now not commit another crime because he is dead. Most of the community or state in this case will feel safer with one less criminal, a dangerous criminal, who cannot kill anymore. He has killed over 150 people so I think that if that does not reward a capital punishment sentence then nothing will, he has shown no remorse over the crime and has not apologised to the families of the dead for what he did. I don’t think that he deserves to live, some people who are against capital punishment say that keeping them alive is a just punishment because they have to live with what they have done forever and will have to live with the abuse from people. But I don’t think that this is true because if hey have killed as many people as McVeigh has then I don’t think they will really think about the people who he has killed and it wouldn’t have phased him, if he received abuse from the public then I think the police would have moved him onto a witness protection scheme which will help him get over what he has done and therefore it will not really be a just punishment.
By killing him they have ended his life and ended the chance of him having a family and a successful career which I think is a just punishment for what he has done, if capital punishment was not used
and if he did stay in prison for the whole of his life which would be unlikely, then he would be still alive and may commit crimes in prison, the government is also using a lot of the tax payers money to look after them.
Which brings me on to my next reason for bringing capital punishment back; Looking after the prisoners costs money, the taxpayer’s money. This money could be used in education or in medical care to provide for people who deserve it instead of killers who deserve to be dead. Recent research has shown that more money is spent on prisoner’s meals than on school dinners, this shows that the government thinks that the prisoners welfare is more important than the welfare of young children who are the future of this country, the prisoners are criminals who are not doing anything for this country apart from wasting the taxpayer’s money. We cannot risk letting serial killers out of prison when they are “reformed” or pretend to be because they could go out and kill again, wouldn’t it just be better to kill the murderers?
I think it will because they will not kill again and they are not wasting anymore money, it will also stop the prisons being more crowded and having to spend more money on building more prisons, and because the murderers are the most dangerous so the Government won’t have to spend as much money on making the prisons more secure. One case of this is with Ian Huntley who is being accused of killing Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman has been kept in a £200,000 super cell in a metal hospital while doctors do tests on him to find out if he is fit to stand trial. While in this super cell he has a games console, television and many other things to help him enjoy himself which I think is wrong because the £200,000 could be spent on something useful instead of on a suspected murderer he should just have the basics to live on, he may also be pretending to have psychological problems so he doesn’t go to prison or have to be accused of anything.
My next reason for bringing back capital punishment is that it will help the victims get over the loss through retribution.
If the offender is kept alive and is being kept alive by the money from tax payers which might be the money of the victim’s family, I think this is wrong because the victim’s family have done nothing to deserve the pain and suffering that they will always have when remembering their family member who was killed by a heartless murderer. If the murderer ever gets released which they probably will then the family will have more hurt to deal with when they see the killer walking free from prison and they are free to live a full and happy life when their son, daughter, father or mother are dead and cannot live their life anymore, it will also make the family not be able to live a free life knowing that the killer is always out there and will probably commit other crimes. Capital punishment does not only lower the murder rate its value as retribution alone is a good reason for handing out death sentences. Some people who are against bringing back capital punishment say that we should think about the killer’s family and how they will have to live without their son, daughter etc. But I think that the killer should have thought about that and he/she should have thought about how the victim’s family will feel before he/she does the crime, it is the killers fault so they should take the punishment and we should not give them a second chance just because their family will miss them, this is also another part of the punishment knowing how your family will feel when you are dead and how they will have to deal with abuse from the public every time they go in the street.
My penultimate point on why we should bring back capital punishment is that in a large number of cases a life sentence is not life it is only about 12-15 years. I think that if the Government didn’t bring capital punishment then they should at least give proper life sentences to murderers and maybe even rapists. Capital punishment should be brought back because if we don’t and there is a murderer who serves 7 out of those 15 years and gets released because they have been good then they will be released and they could kill again and also it will be an injustice to all the family of the victim seeing the killer walking the streets. A recent case of a person who was in a mental hospital for killing people was released and then he killed again so surely it would have been better just to execute him and not risk them killing again.
My fifth and final reason for bring back the death penalty is that it deters others from committing the same crime. If it was brought back then I think that most criminals would be deterred from killing because of the death penalty, it will probably bring down the murder rate in Britain, if we get it right and punish the right people then I think it will deter future criminals, we should not let murderers get away with what they have done. They should be punished in the worst possible which is death because they have committed the worst possible crime. If it does not reduce murder rates then at least we have got rid of some of the criminals and they cannot commit another crime. Anyone who kills anyone else without a good reason to then I think they should be executed, anyone who says that the executer is a murderer is wrong because they have a reason to and it is not against the law for an executer to kill a murderer in countries where capital punishment is used.
Now I have showed you five reasons why I think capital punishment should be brought back I am going to conclude this essay by reviewing all the reasons why the death penalty should be brought back and then restate my opinion. I think capital punishment should be brought back because it is the only way to punish international terrorists and maybe deter future ones; it also will save money which can be used in better ways like for education or medical services, it will help the victims family get over their loss, the retribution will help them and they will know the killer is dead and can’t kill anyone else like they did to the family member. My next reason was that life sentence doesn’t always mean life and they could be released and then commit more crimes and my last point was that it will deter other criminals from doing the same crime and therefore lowering the murder rate. Maybe we could have a public vote on whether to bring the death penalty back and then it will be fair, if it is a close result then maybe the Prime Minister should decide, a compromise could be that if a killer does any other crime then they automatically is executed, they have had their second chance and they have wasted it.
All the reasons above are why I think that capital punishment should be brought back and I hope this happens in the near future.
