ABOLISH the DEATH PENALTY in Pennsylvania!!!

http://www.pa-abolitionists.org/deathPA.html <--READ MORE: Information from this site is below:

the death penalty: a mockery of justice

Throughout American History, the death penalty has raised consistent themes. It has always been imposed most aggressively upon the outcasts of society - people not distinguishable primarily by their actions, but always by their status, especially their race and economic standing. It has always been used, ironically, to make a statement about the value of human life. And it has always demonstrated how little our society actually values human life.

The death penalty is a misguided response to violent crime that robs our society of scarce resources while perpetuating a cycle of violence. It is driven not by a desire for true justice but by vengeance and fear. And because our leaders have been unwilling to confront the problem of violence in practical ways, the majority of Americans have convinced themselves that those who commit terrible crimes are less than human, worthy only of the execution chamber.

In order to win votes and approval, politicians continue to ask the wrong questions when addressing crime. Instead of asking how they can foster a better quality of life so that citizens will be less inclined to violence and crime, they ask themselves how many death warrants they can sign before the next election.       Instead of endorsing appropriate punishments, they demand that the appeals process for death row prisoners be streamlined. Instead of providing crime victims with meaningful support, they offer empty consolation by carrying out state-sanctioned murder.

Pennsylvania, whose founders envisioned a place where peace, justice and civil liberties would be revered, has become a case study in the failure of the death penalty. With the fourth larges death row in America, Pennsylvania applies death sentences in a manner that is shockingly biased. Most of those condemned to death are people of color, and almost all of them were too poor to hire a lawyer. A 1998 study conducted by two of the country's foremost researchers on race and capital punishment documents the "infectious presence of racism" in death sentencing in Philadelphia, which has more people on death row than most states.