1995_04 The Daily Collegian April 1995

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6—The Daily Collegian Jyionday, April 3> 1995
Paulo
From page 2
crimes of those proportions.
How can we, then, make those
assumptions? ',
WelL pro-capital punish¬
ment people would say that ac¬
cording to statistics, the crime
rate is relatively. low in the
United StetesVhere death pen¬
alty is a reality.
' This ^argument alone is not
sufficient^ must be deeply ana-
, lyzed m many, different ways.
First, criminals may migrate
from state to state in order to
commit the crimes that fit their
evil needs.
Statistics are also incapable
of providing ruimbers of the in¬
nocent people who faced death
penalty by mistake. In the opin¬
ion of the Right Left, mis issue is
the most important of all when
debating this controversial mat¬
ter.
Let's assume there is a mar¬
gin of error of 2 percent for a
state that legitimizes the death
penalty and that has sentenced
100 people to .the electric chair
or the gas chamber in a period of
10 years.
Therefore, we must then as¬
sume tha t among 98 horrendous
- criminals, two innocent people
die. This seems to be an irrel¬
evant number considering the
fact that perhaps the extermina¬
tion of the 98 actual guilty crimi¬
nals had prevented many pos¬
sible murders to occur. It would
be irrelevant as long as the two
innocent people were not mem¬
bers of our families, such as our
mothers, fathers, brothers, sis¬
ters, daughters, sons or even
ourselves.
Please do not get me wrong.
I dobelieve thataiminals should
not have it easy. Jails should
provide their inmates with avery
tough way of life. By executing
people, we will not bring any¬
one back. We are also doing
nothing to the offenders of the
law but are allowing them to go
a little earlier-       .        ^
vLefs consider the case of an
imaginary, cruel murder who
has raped andiulled many inno¬
cent peopteruy executing our
fictional character, we may help
him or her to face a better exist¬
ence than the one that we live
under. How can we be sure that
we are actually punishing in¬
stead of rewarding?
Criminals should be, while
incarcerated, forced to work and
produce, supporting.not only
themselves but also providing
for the families that they have .
harmed.
Through their work, we
could also assist the state to im¬
prove our neglected and endan¬
gered specie: the Department of
Education. ^
i am.still one of those who
know that only education can
prevent crime. If we observe the
societies that spend more money
and time into education per
capita than we do, we will find
places where crime is still a so¬
cial phenomenon, like Sweden
and Norway. On the other hand,
if we take a look at places mat
neglect education even more
than we do, like Brazil or Co¬
lombia, we will learn that Fresno
is not a such bad place to live
afteralL       t
Finally allow me to say that
if we are going to consider sta¬
tistics as the basis for our deci¬
sions, why not consider the sta-
tistics tharprove that bur judi¬
cial system is not as blind as it
claims to be?
It has always carefully con¬
sidered the color of the skin of
our allegedly criminals. Let's
face it. We are humans, not com¬
puters. We make mistakes. We
engage in poor judgments.
Let's allow our mistakes to
be repaired. After death is al¬
ways too late to make the
changes.Christians, while con¬
sidering the issues of death pen¬
alty . and abortion, remember
what your master once said.
"They may know death, but
I know lifer"
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Sagrario Diaz and Ryan Beck enjoy the music of Tepayat. The band performed in the first
Celebration of the Work of Cesar Chavez, Friday in the Free Speech Area.
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^Hcy this is corporate America. Wfe have to keep it clean.
VISA
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