Capital Punishment

I think that the death penalty can be an effective deterrent to crime, but only sometimes. Unless a criminal really deserves to have their life taken away, i believe it is more of a punishment to have them rot in jail for their whole life. I'm sure that many people who have been sentenced to life in jail would rather have just gotten the death penalty because jail is so much worse. Now some people do just need to be put to death after they commit a crime, but there are other ways to punish criminals without killing them. The biggest benefit to capital punishment is obviously taking away the lives of people that don't deserve to live because they have wasted their life. On the other side though it does cost a lot of money to do this over and over, plus the death penalty is not the worst consequence for everyone, some even wouldn't mind that because their life is such a failure that they just want to be dead. That is why i think life in jail is more appropiate. The thing that shocked me the most was actually the costs of the death penalty and how much more expensive it is than more important things such as school. Also how it costs $22,650 to keep a person in prison for a year. I was also shocked when i saw that whites receive the death penalty more than blacks do. In the reading it said that 50% of Americans today support the death penalty. I didn't really know what to think of this because i don't know how people feel about this topic. I know though that i don't have a problem with it, even though i think jail is worse.