1st negative case You have heard the affirmative side and you may disagree or agree with some of their points, but the reality is that their plan will not and cannot succeed in today's society. Sure, on paper the plan looks great, but it won't work. The current system, with the death penalty, is much better than without it. The negative side, which my partner and I represent, believes that the death penalty should not be abolished and that the current system, which allows states to choose whether they want to impose the death penalty, should continue to be used. It is true that innocent people have been executed, but that number is tiny compared to the number of “real” criminals who are legitimately executed. A 28-step procedure is required before a person can be sentenced to death. By making the process have many steps and involve many different people, human error is greatly reduced. The death penalty is not a racial or sexist prejudice, quite the opposite of what the affirmative team believes. The fact is that men commit more crimes and will therefore be convicted more often than women. The ratio of men to women sentenced to death and executed is 68:1, or 3,400:50 (NAACP, Spring 1996). From 1976 to 1994, men committed 7 times more murders than women, a ratio of 7:1 (Sourcebook '94). Therefore, it can be shown statically that men are, by a ratio of 70:1, more likely to be on death row than women. Like gender bias, racial bias is non-existent in decisions involving the death penalty. Whites represent 56% of those executed and Blacks 38% (NAACP Summer 1996). The remaining 6% are other minorities. The death penalty does not bias in favor of any race, but one only has to look at the numbers to believe that it does. The total populations of each race will give the illusion of bias, but this is not true. Affirmatives also argue that the cost of life in prison without parole is far less than the cost of the death penalty, but this, like their accusation of bias, is also false. The death penalty costs millions less than life without parole in the long term, but when our numbers are compared to those of the affirmative, no conclusions, right or wrong, can be drawn. No team can give unbiased numbers since studies from both sides are biased..