Kyle Ryan

Is The Death Penalty Wrong?

THE QUESTION of the week is: “Is the death penalty wrong?” This week, our guest artist and philosopher is Kyle Ryan. Kyle is a passionate, sweet, adventurous, and friendly 9 year old, who lives in St. James, Long Island and Silver Beach , the Bronx . Kyle has a fabulous sense of humor. He is a 4 th grader at Mills Pond Elementary School in St. James. His teacher is Ms. Laurine.

Kyle's favorite subjects are math and science. He loves to play all sports, especially baseball, football, and hockey. He likes to watch sports, play video games, and play with his friends, Brian, Nick, and Chris. He also enjoys riding his bike, his electric go-kart, and his scooter. In the summer, he enjoys going to Yankee games with his dad.

Kyle chose, with great enthusiasm, the question: “Is the Death Penalty Wrong?” One of the reasons he liked this question is that he happened to have been talking about it a few days before our interview. He already had his answer all ready to go! Kyle believes that the death penalty is wrong. Kyle thinks, “Killing a killer is killing. If anyone believes that killing is so bad that the killer should get the death penalty, then they believe killing is a very bad thing. Two wrongs don't make a right.”

After clearly asserting his view on the death penalty, Kyle proposed an objection to his view before I even had a chance to talk. He said “I know some people think that the death penalty scares bad people from killing, but I think there are better ways to scare people. Plus, the death penalty puts people to sleep forever. Maybe that's not even so scary. Maybe people would be willing to risk it.” (Another philosophical question we came close to addressing is: Is death bad for the one who dies? After all, a dead person does not feel pain or suffer.)

As Kyle took his first breath, I quickly asked him what he had in mind when he said he could think of something scarier than the death penalty as a punishment. He thought life in jail forever would be worse. “Jail should not be a nice place,” he added. “Prisoners who kill people should work really hard in jail and their pay should be a bowl of cereal.” I mentioned that some people object to life in prison as a reasonable alternative because it is expensive for taxpayers. Kyle thought we could cut down on the cost by having minimal comforts in jail and by using the prisoners to work for the benefit of the community. For example, “they could build playgrounds, pick up litter, shovel the sidewalks in the winter and things like that. Prisoners do not have to sit in their jail cell all day, doing nothing. All prisoners should have a job that benefits society.”

Kyle also added that some killers could possibly change. If a person changed from being a killer to being a good person, Kyle believes the person could be let out of jail (with total supervision at first.) Kyle needed more time to think about how the test would go, but he thought some good test might be designed to show if the person really became good or if the person was just pretending to be good.

I am proud to reveal that Kyle Ryan is my nephew.