Dead Teen Walking

The death penalty has always been a controversial topic. The issues behind it are so complex that some people find it’s hard to choose a side. However, in the case of teen death penalties, the U.S. is severely out of date. If we are in the company of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria and Yemen, countries “known for human rights violations”, then it’s time for a change. The fact that “two-thirds of their group are minorities” only shows how skewed the system is. It isn’t just the fact that these kids usually have low IQs, have been physically/mentally/sexually abused or suffered serious psychiatric problems, it’s also the fact that many convicted youths are not the “career criminals” that death row is used for a “last resort of justice”.

Like in the novel White Fang, nature vs. nurture needs to be taken into account. A character named Beauty Smith “was a monstrosity, and the blame of it lay elsewhere. He was not responsible. The clay of him had been so molded in the making” (London 213). The juveniles on death row have been proven to have some form of abuse. As Victor Streib said, these teens are living at home; they’re living the abuse whereas an adult criminal has “had time to form a new life”. I don’t believe that reading White Fang greatly influenced my opinion on this matter, but I suppose it developed more support for it. Because while one might argue that White Fang changed from what nature taught him so it proves these death row juveniles could too, we have to remember that it took a long time for White Fang to suppress that nature after the “nurture” he’d received.

While I can’t assume to fully understand why a victim’s family or loved one’s would want the death penalty or what I would do in a similar situation, I still believe that the death penalty is wrong. It costs less to keep a person in jail for life than to execute them. There needs to be that reverence for life. Revenge or “an eye for an eye” won’t solve anything. Again, though I don’t know how I’d react in a victim’s shoes, I have hope that I’d have the strength to let go of revenge. I think a lot of people confuse revenge with forgiveness; they are not one and the same. If taking away the death penalty completely is too big a leap for people right now, at least the U.S. should start by taking away the teen death penalty.