Capitol Punishment an 8th Grade Assignment

I was asstounded by Emily's assignment and the logic and assessment of Capitol Punishment by her is amazing. I do not want to start a debate, but feel free to post your comments. Thanks for reading!

Capital Punishment
January 26, 2009

Capital punishment has been around almost as long as mankind, from the era of Jesus Christ when people were stoned to death for their wrong doings. Then the middle ages when people were beheaded or hung. And now in the present people are killed by lethal injection. My opinion on capital punishment is that it should be present in our current society.

I think we should have capital punishment because firstly the government has spent a good amount of money perfecting the “art” of capital punishment, so that it is quick and almost humane. Taking that into consideration, if we spend money on something why would we not use it? It would be a waste. The chemicals used in lethal injection, usually Pentothal, Pancuronium bromide, and Potassium chloride cost a lot more than a rope or an axe.

Secondly, there is an old saying, “an eye for an eye”, which is exactly what capital punishment is. If you kill someone you don’t deserve to live anymore, except in certain situations. Say you bump into someone on the stairs and they fall and break their neck. They die instantly, there was nothing anyone could do and it wasn’t your fault. How could you have known they would fall? In short it was an accident. You don’t deserve to die if it was an honest to god accident. But if you purposely shoot someone in the heart you definitely deserve to die, because that is murder and murder is wrong. So it should have the most severe consequences.

Another reason that I think justifies capital punishment is that there are some people out there who commit heinous crimes for fun and end up with life in prison or shorter sentences. Some of them even get parole and they do not adjust to life outside of jail where someone can’t watch them constantly to make sure they don’t do anything illegal or wrong. When they get out even if they have had therapy, some still kill. Certain and sometimes random things trigger something in there head that makes them kill again. Having these criminals still alive is a danger to society.

My last reason is that when a person who has committed a murder gets out of jail they have the loved ones of whoever the killed obviously very upset with them. Sometimes these people act on their emotions and get revenge on the person who killed their loved ones. So not only is there one more murder in the world there is also one for murderer and that is not right.

In conclusion the people who kill should not be allowed to live anymore so as to prevent potential murders and murderers. I say potential because not every person who has lost a loved one will take revenge into their own hands and not every murderer will kill again. But is that a risk society is willing to take?

By: Emily T.

While I don't agree with the views... or that this was an appropriate topic for an 8th grade paper... it was very well written.

She did a great job.

Yeah I was kinda of shocked when she told me today that it was a class assignment. This topic I think is more for Highschool students.

I have the opposite opinions, but that is very well written. I particuarly like the ending. She seems like smart girl, you must be very proud

You should be very proud of her, that is a very well written paper. Unfortunately with all things in school they are pushing more and more advanced subjects and topics on them at a younger age. I know that way back when I was in school for example, we had french class only once you were in grade 7 or 8 and now my youngest had french in grade 1. There are many other things that have also been push on them sooner, too many to go into. I feel that they are trying to age our children quicker than they need to be.

She did a very good job on this paper. You have one smart girl there.

She did a very nice job supporting her views. Her English teacher is obviously doing a good job teaching her how to write a position paper. Well done!

As I am an advocate of Capital Punishment I love it. I am not sure if I disagree with giving an 8th grader this assignment. The way I see it they are at a point in their lives where they have their own opinions about things and you are catching them before their views get tarnished in HS because of what the "in" thing is.

I think it was well thought out and well written.

Thanks everyone! I'm very proud of her, she's a very smart girl. Smart enough to think about which Highschool would help her to get into a good medical school. She just blows me away!

An 8 grader made this one? Seems she is very good on this, a well written assignment and she really gives point by point views that would give a [better idea about capitol punishment.

Just my thoughts!

I wonder how well an 8th grader has done this assignment on the such a difficult topic for such an age. She deserves recognition for this. May be some points need more elaborated in terms of history but overall a good job. Teens do miracle in all fields and kids like these tends to be very active in academics.

Very well written.

Has she seen the movie "The Life of David Gale" (or something like that) starring Kevin Spacey?

It's a movie about Capital Punishment, I thought it was a great movie, but then again Kevin Spacey is on my laminated card.