No Choirboy Post 5

The next chapter in No Choirboy comes from an interesting perspective. This chapter deals with taking to Paul Jenkins, and Mary Jenkins who are the siblings of William Jenkins who was a teenager that was murdered at his fast food job. Paul and Mary explain how they feel and how their brother’s death had impacted their lives. Mary says, “ I never questioned my parents decision. No, never. Dad’s totally opposed to the death penalty. That’s his whole movement right now, all about victims’ rights.” Paul states, “ I’m pretty sure Dad’s primary focus is that because it hurt him so much that William died he did not want to inflict that on any other person, like the parents of the murderer. The murderer was also someone’s son.” Bill says, “ For religious and philosophical reasons, I don’t believe that the death penalty isa  viable way to stop crime. Never did. The prosecutor said that they were taking this case very seriously. This was a capital case. No one would have blamed me if I just said, “Yeah, go get him.”

I find this passage very interesting. A lot of people say they are against the death penalty but how would you feel if somebody that you love was murdered? Would killing the murderer bring justice? Bill then says, “ If you believe in something, you have to act on it or it’s not worth believing in.” This is a very important quote in this chapter and I find Bill to be a very strong person. He could have easily just said yeah, we want justice and then the murderer would have been killed too. But he was strong enough to stand up for his beliefs in an emotional time.