America. Home of baseball, malls, apple pie, and the death penalty.

Since the sun finally sat in the British Empire, America has been the self-claimed leader of this world and representative of terms such as "freedom" and "justice." America has also been known for condemning other nations, even referring to them as "developing countries." A closer look however reveals that America has much in common with these so-called developing countries, such as the fact that it's still holding on to capital punishment, unlike its Western cousins around the globe.

Perhaps the death penalty is simply a tradition, like turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving. The death penalty has been practiced in this country from its foundation, apart from the 1972-1976 interval when the Supreme Court decided it was unconstitutional, calling it a "cruel and unusual punishment." Since 1996, the year of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the pace has picked up and the United States now ranks 5th in number of executions of the world's practicing countries, one seat above Iraq.

It's hard to envision that a legal system which reduces the value of a human life can actually prevent crime. The fact is it doesn't. Surveys have yet to show that the system works as it was designed to. The exact opposite seems to be closer to the reality lawmakers and their followers seek to ignore and data has disclosed that states which practice lawful executions have a 50-100 percent higher homicide rate than states which have abolished capital punishment. Furthermore, FBI data has revealed that in 2006, 11 out of 12 states without the death penalty had homicide rates below the national average. And in Canada, the crime rate has dropped 27 percent since capital punishment was abolished there in 1976.

There are also those who believe a price can be put on human life and continue to argue that by putting criminals to death tax payers won't have to support their lifelong imprisonment. But if the matter is simply about money, the truth is that it can be 70 percent more expensive to send a prisoner to his final destination than to keep him incarcerated for life, according to a Kansas study. In Florida, an execution costs 3.2 million dollars, while a lifetime in prison goes for 600.000 dollars. The dollars saved by terminating executions could be used for crime prevention, with the possibility of seeing fewer dead bodies on both sides of the legal system.

The discovery of innocent people on death row is consistent. In the past 25 years, over 100 people have been released from custody due to evidence of their unjust convictions. Professors Hugo Bedau and Michael Radelet found in a 1987 study (later expanded into the book In Spite Of Innocence) that at least 23 prisoners had been wrongfully executed during the last century. How many more there might be we don't know. Few are interested in the case of a corpse. Once executed, those people won't have another chance to appeal for the right to keep their lives.

Revenge dates far back. In the times of the Vikings, clans would revenge the murder of a member by ganging up on the murdering clan, who would in turn strike back and on it would go. Today, this practice is still found amongst inner city gang members, sometimes reaching the public in the form of news of rappers being gunned down in drive-bys. Are the leaders of this country no better than ancient barbarians, or in the same league as Biggie and Tupac? If we are acting out of the fear of criminals continuing to take lives if we don't eliminate them, we have failed to consider that a new generation of criminals is being created. People can change but it's hard if you're not given hope. And there is not much hope being offered in a nation which executes its citizens.

We cannot defend life by taking life. Executing a person will not bring back the victim, it will only add to the loss by depriving another family of a member. And it creates another victim as well, a victim of a dated legal system.