Ted Talks speech “Lessons from Death Row Inmates”

The death penalty is one of those topics that often creates heated debates between the pro-life and pro-death penalty proponents. These people essentially can’t decide what we should do with the worst of the worst criminals, that our society has to offer. The question people don’t ask is “What preventive measures can we make to keep at risk youth and individuals from getting to this point?” This very question is the main focus point of  David R. Dow in his In the speech Dow tries to summarize the death penalty debate while offering his own unique solution in one of the more interesting Ted Talks I’ve seen in a while.

 One thing that really caught my attention during the speech was the way Dow presented himself on stage. Throughout the course of the speech his voice was sincere and stern as if he wanted the as if he wanted his voice alone to portray how important the topic was to him. Which makes since, as he is an attorney whose career revolves around  defending young death row inmates. His eye contact was also mostly good, I say “mostly” because his erratic eye movement, and occasional glance downward were obviously the result of nervousness. His hand movements, voice, and eyes all matched the tone of his speech in the end, and weren’t really a detriment or anything. I just thought I’d point it out, since the way you present a speech is just as important as what you say during said speech.

 On to what he actually said during his speech, essentially Dow gives a summary of the death penalty debate. Which we’ve all heard before, but where things get interesting is when he says “there is a corner in the death penalty debate, where everyone agrees-that's the corner I want to explore.” This immediately peaked my interest since im always interested in hearing new perspectives in arguments. I really wanted to hear this third opinion, in what I thought was a two-sided argument. He goes on to talk about how most people who end up in death row have one thing in common, most were juvenile delinquents in their youth.

This is where he proposes a solution to not only all the death row sentences, but also the high incarceration rates. To put it simply, intervening in the live of juvenile delinquents before they end up in a life of crime and death row. Dow then begins to talk about programs designed to help troubled at risk kids, like the ones he works with to try and deter them from of life of crime. Right as I began to get skeptical, he then began to show evidence to back up his claims that preventive crime measures will also lower crime rates. The main idea of the speech is that know matter what side of the debate a person is on, they can both agree that preventing the murder which resulted in the death penalty sentencing is the optimal outcome.

 So in conclusion, the speech was entertaining all thought, and made me change the way I thought about the criminal justice system and the death penalty. The speaker’s style and tone matched what he was trying to convey to the audience. The speech was well structured with an interesting main idea and supporting ideas and evidence to support it. It offered a great solution to the problem of the death penalty, even if it is a little naive and overly optimistic. In the end I don’t know what will happen in the next few years involving the death penalty. I only hope the more people start thinking of criminal punishment in the way that Dow does, The best punishments are the ones that don’t have to happen.