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Ways the death penalty is effective
Impact of capital punishment
History of the death penalty
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According to statistics, a black male is more likely to get the Capital Punishment if he kills a white. Prosecutors have a higher tendency to pursue these types of cases only because of their racial grudges. Not only are these unfair, they are also given to a defense that give little to no care about winning or have very little experience to actually do something. Millions of dollars are spent on retrials, postponing, and setting up of the execution. I see the death penalty as a cheap way of getting out of a severe punishment. Families should know that the criminal in fault of causing them hard is forever rotting in a cell till he expires. Abolishment of the Death Penalty should spread among all states since it does nothing but cause harm and
Most states who are practicing the Death Penalty do not have a decrease in their crime rates. It very displeasing to also find out that most criminals don 't get caught, most criminals don 't even receive the penalty of death, but the one who are unlucky enough to be given it are doomed to spend year of their life to finally receive their punishment. It more then often takes a decade or sometimes more so receive their punishment, so these criminals don 't obviously make amends for committing their crime since they have a very long time to lose interest in the subject and therefore care less about what they have done. The Death Penalty does not aid in the deterrence of crime, especially murder.
In some cases, innocent people are on death row so in the end some are put to death. These deaths are tragedies that are in no way irreversible but next time those in charge should put the extra effort to reveal their innocence. About 4% of people that are on death row in the US are later found out after death to be not guilty. The Death Penalty Information Center who is in charge of investigating this type of foul play have suspected that a number of prisoners were wrongfully accused and put to death through abuse of
Many people are led to believe that the death penalty doesn’t occur very often and that very few people are actually killed, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,359 people have been executed as a result of being on death row since 1977 to 2013. Even though this form of punishment is extremely controversial, due to the fact that someone’s life is at stake, it somehow still stands to this very day as our ultimate form of punishment. Although capital punishment puts murderers to death, it should be abolished because killing someone who murdered another, does not and will not make the situation any better in addition to costing tax payers millions of dollars.
In the United States, one in twenty-five people on death row are innocent (Ferner). This is true because people are wrongly convicted of crimes they did not commit everyday. Our judicial system is not as perfect as it would seem. There are many factors that tie into this, sometimes information is withheld, or racism between citizens and the police becomes a conflict, and much more. In the book Just Mercy, a story of justice and redemption, written by Bryan Stevenson, it has many different stories about wrongly imprisoned people and their stories. Today in America, we could do a lot better about letting people get wrongly convicted for crimes they never committed. However, in North Carolina the compensation is a good thing and does well for the wrongly imprisoned people.
These are the facts that kill the pros arguments; the death penalty does not deter people from committing murder, and actually in a strange twist of logic death penalty states have higher homicide rates then non death penalty states. Most people believe that it is cheaper to sentence people to death, wrong again. The following states that have reported higher costs for the sentence of the death penalty verses life without the possibility of parole are, Texas, Kansas, Maryland, California, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina. These are the facts that strengthen the cons arguments; there is undeniable proof that all methods used to carry out the penalty of death can cause the offender to suffer in a cruel and unusual way. There is a disparity in sentencing towards minorities for the death penalty, “defendants convicted of killing a white person were 4 times more likely to be sentenced to death then if they had killed a black person” (Stull, 2012). If our sentencing of the death penalty was fair and not racist, then each state that has the death penalty should have around the same number of people given that sentence for a set number of people living in that state. Yet, “82% of the 900 executions performed in the U.S. were carried out by only ten states with Texas and Virginia accounting for more than half of those executions” (ACLU, n.d.) that’s not
If an error occurs in the procedure, the criminal will face a painful and cruel death. Even more horrifying, an innocent person can be placed on death row. “The reality is that there are few innocent people on death row; the vast majority of these inmates did, in fact, commit the crimes for which they were found guilty. These killers brutally took the lives of innocent victims. By not recognizing the lives of their victims as sacred, they cannot claim their own lives are sacred. In the end, the death penalty is an individual punishment for an individual crime” (Bowman and DiLascio). Although this quote tries to offer a counterpoint to the argument that the death penalty should be abolished, it still admits that there are innocent people on death row. An innocent man placed on death row results in two casualties of innocent men while the brutal murderer sleeps peacefully each night. Errors in the death penalty can destroy families, terminate friendships, and disintegrate love and companionship. Since there is no guarantee that every person on death row is guilty, it is too dangerous to risk more innocent
According to deathpenatlyinfo.org, currently there are 32 states with the death penalty and 18 states without the death penalty. Society has always punished people for doing unlawful actions. Being that murder is the most in the highest interest of preventing, the strongest punishment available, the death penalty, is used. People may think when states sentence murderers to death that it would prevent future murderers from doing the same actions, seeing that they will receive the same punishment. Deathpenaltycurriculum.org reports, “Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out”.
The death row not only consists of murderers, but it could also include a large number of innocent people whose lives are at risk. In the past 35 years, over 130 people have been taken out of the death row because of new evidence proving their innocence. This shows that the death penalty process is very faulty and contains many errors when it comes to convicting a person of a crime. There was an average of three exonerations per year from 1973 to 1999 which soon rose to an average of five per year between 2000 and 2007 ( Cary, Mary Kate). The ...
From back in the late 1800s to the early 1900s you can see that the death penalty was set up for the punishment of African Americans. Steiker and Steiker states in their article, “Not only did the number of blacks executed surpass the number of whites executed during the eighteenth century, but blacks were often executed for different crimes” (2015, pg. 245). From this one can see that yes some white people did suffer from the death penalty back in the day, but for crimes such as murder or rape. Black people on the other hand were sent to death for crimes such as looking at a white women wrong or jay walking (Steiker and Steiker, 2015). This seems to be happening today as well. Like old times black people seem to get it the worse then white people. So why keep a punishment which was based on race and still to this day seems to not have changed (Steiker and Steiker,
One of the most repetitive and controversial topics discussed in the criminal justice system, is the death penalty. Capital punishment has been a part of our nation’s history since the creation of our constitution. In fact, as of January 1st, 2016, 2,943 inmates were awaiting their fate on death row (Death Penalty Information Center). Throughout my life, I have always been a strong advocate for the death penalty. During the majority of my undergraduate degree, I was a fierce supporter of capital punishment when discussing the topic in classes. However, throughout many criminal justice courses, I found myself in the minority, regarding the abolishment of the death penalty. While debating this topic, I would always find myself sympathetic to the victims and their families, as one should be, wanting those who were responsible for heinous crimes to
The death sentence has become a huge controversy in the United States over the past forty years. Over those forty years there has been a lot of less tax payers and donators willing to pay money to the justice system to execute a criminal. These types of people that have helped to pay in the past for these executions have stopped due to them not wanting a death connected to them in any way, or because they simply see life in prison a more suitable punishment. Without the funding needed, the criminals on death row are not able to receive their proper punishment within a reasonable amount of time. A lot of times the criminals never get their proper punishment due to lack of funding. Also, criminals that commit extreme crimes may not get the death penalty due to it not being registered as capital murder. These are all issues that have affected the death penalty over time.
“Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 138 innocent men and women have been released from the death row, including some who came within minutes of execution. In Missouri, Texas and Virginia investigations have been opened to determine if those states executed innocent men. To execute an innocent person is morally reprehensible; this risk we cannot
The death penalty is racist, it punishes the poor, it causes the innocent to die, it is not a deterrent against violent crime, and it is cruel and unusual punishment. More than half of the countries in the world have already abolished the death penalty and the U.S should abolish it too. It is wrong and cruel. Some states in the U.S still hold the death penalty because they think it will keep U.S citizens safe, but we can just keep the murders in a separate patrolled jail. Abolish it and we may save the lives of the people that may have been executed innocent.
Why should the death penalty be abolished? The death penalty should be abolished because of many reasons. Many people believe the saying, 'an eye for an eye'. But when will people realize that just because someone may have killed a loved one that the best thing for that person is to die also. People don't realize that they are putting the blood of another person life on their hands. This makes them just as guilty as the person who committed the crime: the only difference is that they didn't use weapon except their mouth to kill them. The death penalty should be abolished because it is racist, punishes the poor, condemns those who are innocent to death, and is a cruel punishment.
In fact, murder rates are lower in non-death penalty states having the death penalty. According to the studies done by the National Research Council, the claim “the death penalty affects murder rates were fundamentally flawed because they did not consider the effects of noncapital punishments and used "incomplete or implausible models."
The death penalty deters murder. The death penalty is the best way to stop a killer from killing someone else. Some say that prison is enough, but it isn’t. Death is necessary because if they are only sent to prison there is always the risk that some day the same killer that brutally killed a 5-year old or raped and strangle a college student might return to the streets.
Have you ever thought about if the person next to you is a killer or a rapist? If he is, what would you want from the government if he had killed someone you know? He should receive the death penalty! Murderers and rapists should be punished for the crimes they have committed and should pay the price for their wrongdoing. Having the death penalty in our society is humane; it helps the overcrowding problem and gives relief to the families of the victims, who had to go through an event such as murder. Without the death penalty, criminals would be more inclined to commit additional violent crimes. Fear of death discourages people from committing crimes. If capital punishment were carried out more it would prove to be the crime preventative it was partly intended to be. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives were at stake. Use of the death penalty as intended by law could actually reduce the number of violent murders by eliminating some of the repeat offenders. The death penalty has always been and continues to be a very controversial issue. People on both sides of the issue argue endlessly to gain further support for their movements. While opponents of capital punishment are quick to point out that the United States remains one of the few Western countries that continue to support the death penalty. The deterrent effect of any punishment depends on how quickly the punishment is applied.