Death penalty a necessary evil

by Jonathan Davis
The Daily Cougar

University of Houston (U-WIRE) — The Washington, D.C.-area sniper crisis has ended, and we are left with 10 people dead, three badly injured and two captured madmen. If John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are indeed the killers, they have certainly earned their deaths. Justice and societal order demands it.

I staunchly support the death penalty. It’s a necessary evil. All human beings have the right to life, and human life must be protected at all costs. Americans should be willing — even eager — to surrender some personal liberties to enable our authorities to provide us the greatest protection and security.

Because of the threat killers pose, they can’t be dealt with lightly. Their punishment must be firm. What, though, to do with these criminals?

My first inclination, since killers are obviously ill, is to put them in intensive therapy with the ultimate goal of reintegrating the wrongdoers into society. (Why bother to “cure” someone that would spend his or her life behind bars anyway?) There are two disconcerting factors though: first, the possibility of relapse after being released, reverting to a murder-capable mental state; and second, criminals who effectively “fake” their way through therapeutic programs to get back on the street.

I think this therapeutic, healing ideology is admirable, but it’s ultimately impractical. Even if someone was genuinely “healed,” could I return a murderer to society knowing that I could not guarantee that he won’t relapse to violence? How to explain to the grieving parents of a dead three-year-old that their child’s killer seemed stable and healthy when we released him?

Thus, as far as I’m concerned, the therapeutic argument falls flat. The risks are too great.

To keep murderers behind bars is vast drain of resources better used elsewhere.

Besides, sentencing someone to life behind bars just seems to be a way of sweeping the problem under the rug without a real resolution. However, I do believe that perpetrators of minor crimes — such as stealing hubcaps or shoplifting — should be jailed with the intention of rehabilitation and eventual release.

But not murderers. They're in a league of their own, threatening the most important thing in existence: human life. Once that line is crossed, once someone slaughters an innocent person and subjects that person’s family to life-long grief and suffering, he surrenders the great majority of his rights. This includes his right to life.

We can’t allow murderers in our society, and it’s pointless to keep them living behind bars.

The only way to guarantee our society’s safety and to conserve our limited resources is to remove the problem altogether.

Thus, the death penalty. Killing someone is an automatic strike three.

The death penalty, while admittedly unpleasant, is the most efficient route.

One less killer in the world is a better and safer world. Good riddance to those who kill our friends, our mothers, our children. They don’t deserve to live. A life for a life. This is the only way to be certain that he will not strike again, and that doesn’t waste so many of our resources.

Ten people died in the D.C. sniper shooting spree. Personally, I think it’s a shame that we can only administer the death penalty once to such criminals. But if once is enough, so be it.

Know the facts, protect yourself from HIV/AIDS

by Megan P. Hall
The Daily Bruin

University of California-Los Angeles (U-WIRE) — A common misconception among college-age students is that they are in a low-risk group for HIV infection; the opposite is in fact true.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated that at least half of all new cases of HIV infection are among people under the age of 25, and most in this group are infected sexually.

The first cases of AIDS were reported in 1981; three years later the Human Immunodeficiency Virus was identified as the causative agent. Today, almost 20 years later, there is no effective vaccine or treatment, and the epidemic continues to grow.

Recent reports place the number of HIV positive people in the United States between 800,000 and 900,000, and the number of people living with AIDS at 300,000.

The CDC also reports that while the number of AIDS cases is decreasing in people ages 13-25, due to advances in antiviral therapy, the HIV infection rate is increasing.

This increase is mainly due to a rise in risky behaviors, including sharing needles during intravenous drug use and unprotected sex with untested or unknown individuals. Since HIV is transmitted through direct contact with blood, semen, vaginal secretions and breast milk, these activities are the most dangerous.

“The greatest risk of infection probably comes from denial,” or unwillingness “to discuss risk factors or sexual history with a partner,” according to Ann Brooks, a nurse practitioner in the women’s health clinic at the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center.

Many college-age students are embarrassed to discuss HIV status with their partner, contributing to a feeling of complacency.

Women who have sex with women are in the lowest risk group, but studies are still unclear as to whether HIV can be transmitted woman-to-woman via sexual contact.

Stereotypes tend to focus on men who have sex with men as being the only group affected by HIV. In reality, 61 percent of newly diagnosed cases of HIV in people between the ages of 13 and 19 were in women. Women under 25 accounted for a full 47 percent of new cases of HIV in 2000.

While prevention is still the best “treatment” for HIV, there are a number of drugs that can combat the virus once infected. These drugs target various stages of the virus’ life cycle. Protease inhibitors, for example, inhibit HIV’s ability to make functional proteins and therefore mature viruses. Most effective when used immediately after infection (emphasizing the need for testing) and in combination, the goal of the drugs is to simply lower the viral load, or the number of virus particles in the body.

A vaccine using multiple components of HIV's protein coat to stimulate an immune response is currently in clinical trials, but Dr. Jerome Zack, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA who studies how HIV causes disease and is affected by stress levels, is not optimistic about its efficacy.

He argues that “antibodies are only one arm of an efficacious immune response,” and that the virus’ ability to mutate its coat proteins makes it difficult for this type of approach to prevent infection by all strains of the virus.

Although Zack is optimistic about an eventual effective vaccine, he sees it requiring more advances.

Public awareness of HIV as a disease affecting all races, genders and sexual orientations has been slow in coming, as has a cure.

In response, the government increased funding for HIV and AIDS research by

13.1 percent for 2003.

Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said in response to the continuing epidemic: “We are leading the world on AIDS research and doing our part to stem the tide of this global epidemic.”

While government involvement will surely slow the spread of HIV, only personal responsibility, especially among groups with the highest infections rates, such as college-age people, will stop it.

This means engaging in low risk behavior: not using intravenous drugs or not sharing needles, practicing all types of sex safely (oral, vaginal and anal) with both men and women, and getting tested regularly.