Should Murderers Receive Parole?

When it comes to the judicial system, the list goes on about how many things should be corrected and just completely exiled from the laws. One of those decisions being on whether murderers should have parole or live the rest of their lives behind bars. Taking into consideration that some murderers aren’t just one time offenders, some have killed numerous people before actually getting caught. By giving a murderer parole, it sets the family and those involved into a state of injustice and unsatisfaction.  

Once trailed, the convicted receives either 3 options, life in prison, the death penalty or the institution for the criminally insane. For those who receive life in prison, doesn’t always mean a life behind bars. This can only be true if the convicted has what it known as parole. Parole is when a prisoner can be released from prison either temporarily or permanently on account of good behavior. With parole, the person may receive a release date after at least 12-13 years behind bars. Though, it usually depends on the crime committed. For the more harsher crimes, such as killing more than one person, they do receive first degree murder without the possibility of parole. If given a permanent release, this would mean that the murderer gets to walk free as a citizen again. 

After a loved one has been murdered, families don’t really want to hear about the facts and the rights regarding to the convict’s sentencing, unless it contains them being locked up for the rest of their days. The thought of that murderer having the possibility of parole puts them at unease. To know that while the reason for their sorrows is now walking free to live their life and start a new, can be painstaking to absorb. None-the-less, many families frown upon this rule in the judicial system and choose to stand against it because adults aren’t the only people to be murdered, children are too. With that being said, families don’t accept 12-13 years as a fairly ruled punishment, giving the fact that those children either didn’t even experience 12-13 years of their life or just made 12-13 years, which will still never equal out to a life time they will miss out on.

The corporation called Parole Block Program sponsored by Parents of Murdered Children, Inc. is a national organization built around families that have loss their loved one’s due to violence. It helps families to cope with their loss and gives them a chance to take control on whether their murderer should remain behind bars for the remainder of their sentence instead of having the possibility of parole. They write to the courts and highly recommend that the prisoner stays locked up with a reasonable explanation to back it up. Many people involved in this program don’t just do it for themselves but so that others don’t have to go through what they went through because the murderer was released back into society. It also comes down to the prisoner serving their rightful sentence, due to the fact that parole cuts their time in more than half of what they should be serving, resulting in some not serving their appropriate amount of time. The way PBP works, is they try to work with the courts and not so much against them by simply asking the courts to let the prisoner serve their sentence in full, and not necessarily asking for a longer sentence. An example of one story takes place in Omaha, Nebraska: “A paroled killer was sentenced to 20-60 years in prison after shooting a 25-year-old man to death. This was just one month after his parole from prison, where he had been incarcerated for almost 12 years for another shooting.” The family felt cheated out of justice and thought that the courts made a huge mistake, yet what hurt the most was that there was nothing they could do. If it hadn’t been for him being on parole, he wouldn’t have been able to claim another victim. 

Through the selfish, cruel acts of murders, many families and lives have had to suffer upon the hands of those that lack self control. If every other citizen has to follow by the rules, then those who commit the act of murder should face the consequences. Thus, answering the question of if murderers should receive parole. Taking the life of another isn’t anything for anyone to decide upon because a life is something that you can’t get back, unless its a miracle of chance. Either way, it impacts everyone involved in that person’s life and is too painful for the families to see the murderer only serve half of what the deserve. The loss of loved ones, causes depression, anxiety and other emotional and physical distress, so technology the murderer doesn’t just take one life but the whole family and loved ones.The courts and judicial system should highly reconsider this rule for future families to at least give the families’ some closure and real justice.