The recent events in Charleston have left the nation divided on issues of race and mental illness. However there is one thing most people seem to agree on. The killer, Dylan Roof, deserves the death penalty. But what if there was a better punishment?
When I was younger I was very for the death penalty. It seemed that an eye for an eye worked well and deterred others from the crime, but it really doesn't. There is no evidence that people who have committed murder were worried about the death penalty. Why? Because states rarely carry the punishment out it seems. It becomes an idle threat and people who are committing these crimes rarely think of the punishment.
I changed my views a year back when I found out that innocent people were being killed for crimes they did not commit and that the whole process of sentencing someone to death cost the state more money than simply life in prison with no parole. Add all of this to the fact that my morals changed. What once seemed like a reasonable punishment for the crime suddenly appeared barbaric. We were killing someone for killing someone. That makes us no better than them. Some might say, "Well what if that's what the family wants?" As John Oliver put it, "Do you really want to be around those people?"
So what is the solution? What is a better punishment than death, that does not take us back to medieval times?
Before any of this occurred, I was talking to my mom about how I'm against the death penalty. "There has to be a better punishment," I told her. She nodded in agreement and told me this story of a man who had been driving drunk and killed a girl. Her parents did not want prison for him, as it would not bring their daughter back. What they wanted was for him to never forget that he took away her life. Every month on the date of her death, he had to write them a check for $1 and every year on the anniversary he had to spend the night in jail. That's it. If he didn't comply with those rules he would be going to prison.
To some that wouldn't seem like enough, but it drove him to the point were he decided prison was better. He couldn't bear to think about the girl he killed and her family. He would have rather gone to prison than write another check to them. Guilt, as all of us with mothers know, is the most powerful punishment known to mankind.
Now, how does this apply to the Charleston case? The killer admitted to the murder, so there is no chance in killing an innocent man and he did butcher nine people in cold blood. But that's the thing; he didn't see them as people. He saw them as trash that the world wouldn't miss and should be glad to be rid of. They weren't though; they were people. The color of their skin did not make them trash, and I want him to know that.
What I propose is life in prison with no parole. That includes 23 hours a day in a cell, with one hour of exercise alone, and a shower three times a week. On top of that I want the pictures of the victims placed in his cell in a way that one of them will always be looking at him and he can't tear them down. I want him to see their faces every day, until he can't close his eyes without knowing they're there. I want his family to send in the letters they would write to their loved ones about what's going on in their world and how much they miss them. Then, every June 17th, I want him to sit in a room and watch videos from the families telling their loved ones how much they miss them and to show them what they missed, from holidays to just every day life. I want him to sit in the room and see their tears and sadness. I want him to learn that he took people's lives, not trash. They were not trash.
It may take a few years for this to set in for him, but I'm willing to bet that he will be overcome with guilt and grief at the lives that were taken. These people will never get to see their families grow up and accomplish something. They will miss every holiday and gathering. But he will be here, reliving the moments they share in letters and videos. He will know all of their names and families names. He will realize that he took lives that mattered to someone, even if they didn't to him at the time. He killed people, not trash.
And I can think of no better punishment than the torture of knowing that.
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