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Ethical issue of capital punishment
Ethical issue of capital punishment
Moral and ethical issues of capital punishment
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Introduction
Capital punishment was an ancient penalty. This has incurred many argues since 18th century. The focal points are ‘value of life’ and ethical concerns. Besides, the economics analysis also is important, which focuses on the effects and efficiency of capital punishment. In the article, the anterior part indicates the supporting reasons of death penalty, the posterior part indicates the cons.
Support Reason
Deterrence of punishment
Becker (1968), first of all, assumes that the crime is bad which incurs social loss, it should be deterred, death penalty is the severest punishment, and potential criminals are normal individuals. Because individuals are rational, the potential criminals also are rational. They commit crime as maximization of utility. The opportunity cost of committing crime is the net utility from legitimate activity. Therefore, the criminals forgo the crime when expected net utility from crime is lower than the expected net utility derived from legitimate activity. We focus on the expected net utility from crime “E(U)” and equation shows below:
E(U)=P.U(Y-F)+(1-P)U(Y)
P is the subjective probability of the being caught and convicted; U(_) is the individuals utility function, which depend on Y and F; Y is the benefits from committing crime; F is the cost from committing crime if caught, such as punishment.
Therefore the potential criminals will be deterred by the severe punishment.
Almost people are afraid be death, so the capital punishment is extreme severe punishment, which wipes out the benefits from crime efficiently. The capital punishment should be powerful to deter crimes.
Dynamic Analysis
In the dynamic model, the past crime would incur the expansive of future crime as the diminishi...
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Deterrence theorists view murder as rational behavior, and assume that in calculating the gains and losses from killing, potential offenders are aware of the death penalty and regard it as a more severe sanction than imprisonment. Because the threat of one's own death presumably outweighs the rewards gained from killing another, murder is not an option for most people and always discouraged. In addition, some noted proponents assert that capital punishment provides an important educative function in society by validating the sanctity of human life (Berns, 1979; van den Haag, 1975; van den Haag & Conrad, 1983). Despite this logic, some challenge the applicability of deterrence to murder. Rather than being a product of deliberation and calculation, it is known that most murders are emotionally charged and their crimes are spontaneous events; they are "acts of passion" or result from a situated transaction rather than from deliberation (Bowers & Pierce, 1980; Chambliss, 1967; Luckenbill, 1977). Indeed, a significant proportion of homicides may not be intended. The situation escapes calm discussion, or due to some extraneous factor, an assault victim dies. Under such conditions, it is unlikely that perpetrators ("killers") give serious thought to whether they reside in a death penalty jurisdiction, or the possibility of execution.
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Opponents argues that the death penalty does not deterrent individuals from committing crimes. However, there are evidence that death penalty saves lives. Opponents wants us to believe that criminals are unable to rationally make right or wrong choices. According to the rationality choice theory, human behavior are based on self-interest and rational choices about effective ways to accomplish goals with ...
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Between 1977 and 2010, an estimated 8,000 people were on Death Row in the US and out of those 8,000, more than 1,200 were actually executed (Siennick, 2012). Policy makers and scholars have been especially interested in whether the death penalty serves a crime-control function by deterring prospective murderers (Siennick, 2012). This debate on whether or not the Death Penalty is an effective deterrent is important to our society because we need to understand the impact of this ultimate and final punishment. Expectations of deterrence follow from the basic idea that potential murderers decide whether to kill after considering the benefits and costs of killing (Siennick, 2012). The Death Penalty as punishment can be a deciding factor to a potential murderer when they make the decision whether to kill someone or not. There is assorted evidence on whether or not this happens and there isn’t a chosen method to gather data that fully supports this idea.
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Why are some neighborhoods more prone to experience violent episodes than others? What is the extent and in what sociologically measurable ways do communities contribute to the causation and prevention of crime in their neighborhoods? Are neighborhood-level predictors adequate to explain differences in violent crime rates in the respective communities? These are some of the questions addressed by this statistically intense paper published in Science 1997, by Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls.
Capital punishment is based on the proposition that there must be consequences for one’s wrong doing. In society, the message is clear; if one does something punishable, au...
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In recent discussions of capital punishment, it is shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent and crime rates do not decrease because of death penalty. According to Hugo Adam Bedau Ph.D., “Of all those convicted on a charge of
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