“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders. – Albert Camus.” The Death Penalty is among one of the many topics that cause much debate and bring controversy whenever it is addressed in our criminal justice system. Over the course of my undergraduate studies, I have read and researched a lot of data behind this concept and although some of it may be convincing, I have stuck with my stance that the death penalty is wrong and should not be supported. Capital punishment is a topic that I am highly passionate about and have formed many opinions on. The death penalty creates issues in society and has many risks attached to it. While I disagree with capital punishment, the majority of Americans agree with it and its policies. Most of them side with the fact that if you kill a person, then you should be killed as well – an eye for an eye. They feel that if you do such a heinous act, then why should mercy be shown towards you? Their perspectives on supporting the death penalty revolve mostly around revenge and retribution. These concepts date back to a Babylonian law from Hammurabi’s code which are said to have originated in 1754 BC. Although many countries still abide and their implement philosophies, death penalty creates social injustices. While revenge may leave a sense of satisfaction to some, it can be agreed that there is nothing good about taking revenge into one’s own hands. As a society, who are we to judge another? Why should we take a person’s life into our hands? The answer is simple – we are no one to decide whether a person gets to live or not. Taking away the life of a person because they killed someone does not change or make the situation right overall, two wrongs do not make right. If anything, we make the system worse by taking away more and more lives. There are other alternatives to giving them the highest punishment possible and one of them is sentencing them to life without parole. Life without parole makes a person spend the rest of their lives inside of a cell, with no chance of getting out and reminding them of their consequences. If we are looking to punish someone for murdering another person, we should do it in a way where we don’t stain our own hands, but rather remind a person of their actions. Continuing on, the death penalty shouldn’t be supported is the fact that race and place can have a toll on the sentencing. Although everyone is supposed to receive a fair and easy trial by their peers, sadly this does not always happen. Data and statistics show that blacks are often more incarcerated than whites, especially when the victim is white. Race should not be a factor in deciding whether someone gets to live or not. Evidence from prosecutors suggests that the death penalty was easier to seek if the defendant was black and jurors have states that the person’s race influenced their decision. All cases should be from an unbiased point of view and as per research, being unprejudiced is not guaranteed. The system is unfair, and racism is ingrained in it. Aside from the bias that is influences it, capital punishment does not serve as a deterrent for crime. If capital punishment were causing crime rates to go down, then maybe there would be a benefit towards using it. “Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime. Around our country, states without the death penalty have a lower murder rate than neighboring states with the death penalty.’ (OADP) If no evidence for deterrence has been found, why are states still using the death penalty? How is it benefiting society? There is no reason other than revenge against another person. When the state is the one killing, that means that we are also killing because we represent the state. The death penalty centers on ideas from past centuries and does not consider the dignity that a person has left.