Today is my 39th birthday. So if you are inclined to give presents to people on their birthday, you could read this post. Recently, a guy named Ricky Jackson was released from prison after 39 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. He had some rather profound things to say about the boy who the police compelled to make up stuff about him. u.pw/12nsOaI Today, in America, 1 in 10 prisoners on death row are probably innocent. We fact-checked that. It costs three times as much to put a prisoner on death row as it does to keep him in prison for life. The reason is that the court costs can be astronomical, and the appeals process is long. If you shorten the appeals process, the number who are innocent might go up. We might end up killing more innocent men and women for a sense of closure that borders on vengeance more than justice. And the pain of losing a loved one will not go away. Nobody likes to talk about hard issues like the death penalty. But the reality is that it’s expensive, not a deterrent, and actually is killing innocent people. If we don’t talk about it, more innocent people could die for no reason. Being tough on crime is important. But being smart about being tough on crime is just as important. Imagine if we had killed Ricky Jackson. That would be on all our heads. I’m asking that you watch this, and if so inclined, for my birthday, help the filmmakers make more people aware of an issue that many of us are afraid to talk about. It would be a wonderful present. And innocent people deserve more than a blind eye. Thanks, Upworthians.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 03:22:11 +0000
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