Capital Punishment Is Not Created To Maintain Order

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Society often believes the terms law and order are synonymous. What are rule and regulation if they are not created to maintain order? Despite this common assumption law can contradict order. In the case regarding capital punishment, law or order is a more logical assessment of the efficiency and legality of the type of punishment. Capital punishment, more commonly referred to as the death penalty, was created to be the ultimate form of deterrence. Enforcement agents use the death penalty to create social control in society. If a criminal performs the worst perceived crime in society they will receive the worst perceived punishment, death. However, capital punishment does not deter people from committing crimes. This relates back to efficiency. …show more content…

Capital punishment causes law enforcers to neglect procedural law to achieve the highest severity of substantive law. Law enforcers are seeking law while ignoring order for the perceived greater good. Capital punishment uses severity to gain quantity law enforcement over quality law enforcement. The procedural law neglected in the case of capital punishment is due process. After further investigation, almost two thousand people have been labeled executed but possibly innocent since 1979 (Death Penalty Information Center). The Death Penalty Information Center is not the only NGO concerned with this issue. The Innocence Project is an entire organization created to follow cases that failed procedural law and members of society. Once again this proves that capital punishment is not efficient. It also proves that capital punishment contradicts order in a society. Falsely and severely punishing member of society contributes to chaos and mistrust of the judicial process, not order. Certainty means more than severity in law enforcement and order (Lessan Unit 4). Capital punishment threatens certainty of law enforcement, therefore, threatening social

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