I don’t have an opinion about the Death Penalty, much like I am undecided about abortion. I neither have the time or the energy to digest all the “facts” from both sides. It takes more than a few essays, videos or even books to decide if I am pro or anti.

This talk about bringing back the Death Penalty activated my spider senses. The problem here is that I don’t see DP as a long term solution, and it doesn’t address the root cause of crime which is poverty.

We’re humans, wired to adjust and adapt. If heinous crimes are punishable with death, we may only see a small decrease, but it doesn’t affect the overall crime rate in our country. We may see less drug dealers, kidnappers, murderers and rapists, but desperate people could easily switch to robbery, snatching or car napping. With DP we may even see an increase in petty crime; which cannot possibly be punishable with death or we’d be called one of the most barbaric nations in the world.

Tackle the root cause of the problem and hit more than a dozen birds with these 3 factors: 1. better quality education, 2. a strong economic policy and 3. a government with a backbone. The three go hand in hand. I or other people may want to add to these, but at 1am it’s all I can think of. I hope to form an opinion soon, but for now I leave it as is.