Give me Life or Give me Death

The other day I was talking to a good friend of mine and she was working on a paper and told me she was having a problem deciding what side of her professors topic to defend. I asked her what the topic was and she told me:

"We have to pick whether we'd rather give someone life in prison or the death Penalty"

Without even having to give it thought I said "I feel both are wrong" she asked, "Really" when I replied "Yes" the conversation took form and started to get deep.

Let's think about this the way I see it for a second.
Life in Prison:
Regardless of what one has done,(especially at a certain age) to spend your entire life behind bars like a caged animal is unfair. I feel like this because I am a firm believer in second chances. And I feel that after a certain amount of time any man reforms his bad ways, or at very least feels some regret about what he's done. Stop for a second and think to yourself, is there anything you did 5 years ago that you regret, or is there anything you were or should have been punished for and you weren't? Now let's say you were punished, how would you feel if you were still serving time for that 5 years later?

It is safe to say that we all think differently now than we did five years ago, right? Well this is a reason why I don't agree with life in prison, there's men who have been behind the bars of a prison cell for longer than I have been alive, haven't touched money in twenty-plus years, haven't been hugged by a family member in thirty-plus years etc. So say a man was convicted for murder at 17, you think its fair for him to still be serving his sentence at 71?

Now as for
The Death Penalty:
This I won't spend too much time on. But no man alive is God, therefore not a man alive SHOULD have the power to decide whether a man should live or die. Although this is the case sadly some men are giving that power. Again let's think of this the way I do for a second. Some people feel that if you took a life than you deserve to forfeit your life in exchange for that life. Okay, I validate that, but let's think a little deeper, what is the life expectancy of a man in the U.S. today? Let's also take into consideration that he's black, is involved in harmful, unlawful behavior, does drugs and is in constant danger for his life anyway..... Let's say his life expectancy has been cut down to 30. Do you still think its fair for another criminal just like him to serve the rest of HIS natural born life in prison as payment? Hell no? If you feel he should spend the time that the other would have lived in jail then let's give him 15-20 years which is what the dead criminal would have had left on his life..... I hope I'm making sense here. All I'm saying is, the legal/justice system is bull shit anyway, so how about breaking away from the norm and punish people fairly.

So til next time please,
Stay Up and Stay Tuned....