Essays - More Capital Punishment and Less Taxes
More than 13,000 people have been legally executed since colonial
times, most of them in the early 20th Century. By the 1930s, as many as 150
people were executed each year. However, public outrage and legal
challenges caused the practice to come to a halt. By 1967, capital
punishment had virtually halted in the United States, pending the outcome
of several court challenges. Since our nation's founding, the government,
colonial, federal and state, has punished murder and, until recent years,
rape with the ultimate sanction: death. I think that the nation should
still actively use this form of punishment when necessary.
More than 2,000 people are on "death row" today. Virtually all are
poor, a significant number are mentally retarded or otherwise mentally
disabled, more than 40 percent are African American, and a inappropriate
number are Native American, Latino and Asian.
Does the Death Penalty deter crime, especially murder? No, there is
no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime. States that have
death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than
states without such laws. And states that have abolished capital punishment,
or instituted it, show no significant changes in either crime or murder
rates.
Don't murderers deserve to die? Certainly, in general, the
punishment should fit the crime. But in civilized society, we reject the
"eye for an eye" principle of literally doing to criminals what they do to
their victims: The penalty for rape cannot be rape, or for arson, the
burning down of the arsonist's house. We should, therefore, punish the
murderer with death along with all other heinous crimes.
If execution is unacceptable, what is the alternative?
Incapacitation. Convicted murderers can be sentenced to lengthy prison
terms, including life, as they are in countries and states that have
abolished the death penalty. Most state laws allow life sentences for
murder that severely limit or eliminate the e possibility of parole. At
least ten states have life sentences without the possibility of parole for
20, 25, 30 or 40 years, and at least 18 states have life sentences with no
possibility of parole.
A recent U. S. Justice Department study of public attitudes about
crime and punishment found that a majority of Americans support
alternatives to capital punishment: When people were presented the facts
about several crimes for which death was a possible punishment, a majority
chose lengthy prison sentences as alternatives to the death penalty.
Maybe it used to happen that innocent people were mistakenly
executed, but hasn't that possibility been eliminated? No. A study
published in the Stanford Law Review documents 350 capital convictions in
this century, in which it was later proven that the convict had not
committed the crime. Of those, 25 convicts were executed while others spent
decades of their lives in prison.
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Our criminal justice system cannot be made fail-safe because it is
run by human beings, who are fallible. Execution of innocent persons is
bound to occur.
The death penalty is definitely needed because there needs to be an
example made to those who commit crimes that they can not and will not get
away with killing someone and walking off "Scot free" or spending the rest
of there lives in an institution paid by our tax dollars.Partner sites: Rails, Study Spanish in Costa Rica, and Free Essays and Term Papers