The death penalty (also known as capital punishment) has been practiced for over hundreds of years. Over the years there have been many different ways to be put to death, from hanging to the electric chair to injection with poison. The death penalty is an expensive and ineffective way to prevent crimes from occurring. The death penalty should not be a court sentence. “Since the resumption of capital punishment in the United States in 1977, nearly 1,100 condemned prisoners have been put to death in the thirty-eight American states where the practice remains legal. As of early 2007, approximately 3,350 people remain on death row in American prisons” (Ballaro). 1987 was the first time DNA evidence was used in a criminal trial. This comes ten years after the reopening of capital punishment. Who can say that in those ten years DNA evidence could have exonerated any of the prisoners executed? Even if only one person could have been acquitted, that's one more person who could have taken their own life. One expert said: “For better or worse, law is the codified morality of society. While society is far from perfect, it reserves final judgment on the rule of law. Punishment is the only proven method of enforcing the law” (Bowman). Punishment may be the only method that works effectively in attempting to enforce the law, but there are many other forms of punishment besides the death penalty, for example life imprisonment. Life in prison robs a person of their family and friends, the only life they have ever known. Shouldn't that be enough? A man deserves to be punished if he has killed, raped, or any other number of crimes, but a man does not deserve to be put to death. A man deserves to sit in the middle of paper, because the death penalty comes from taxpayer dollars. The extra money could be put to better use. Housing an inmate on death row costs about $90,000 more per year than the general prison population. The death penalty is morally and ethically wrong. It's true that being sentenced to death is the worst possible punishment, but it's also true that there are other ways to punish those who have done horrible things. Tell me something, how is putting someone to death not cruel and unusual punishment? Works Cited Ballaro, Beverly, and C. Ames Cushman “Point: Capital Punishment Should Be Abolished.” Guest of EBSCO. 2009. Network. April 1, 2011. Bowman, Jeffrey, and Tracey M. DiLascio “Counterpoint: The Death Penalty Is Necessary.” Guest of EBSCO. 2009. Network. 3 April 2011. “The innocent and the death penalty”. Innocence Project. 2010. Network. March 31 2011.