The death penalty has completely skewed our society’s sense of justice. Anything short of an execution is portrayed as “lenient” when the government has the power to kill. A life sentence is extremely punitive, but some view it as less severe when compared to a death sentence.

Capital punishment is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to injustice in our criminal-legal system. So many important conversations are happening and laws are slowly being changed, but the death penalty will loom over everything until it is abolished for good.

One example of this problem often comes up when a person is saved from execution. Some commentators describe this as “getting away with it,” when in reality the spared prisoner will almost always spend the rest of their life in prison. That is a very harsh punishment on its own.