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Why the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished 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. Saleh-Hanna, a contributer to the book 'The Case for Penal Abolition' has recently done some research and found that, ?research and evidence has shown that most prisoners are poor, they come from minority populations and have faced great discrimination and racism in the community both before they committed their crimes and during the criminal justice process.? The death penalty is racist because there are higher percentages among those of ethical background. Quoted from the book, Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment, Death-penalty opponents respond that the race card plays a role in other ways. When a defendant has been convicted of killing a white person the odds that the defendant will be executed by the state are much higher. Eighty-five percent of those who have been executed since 1976 were convicted for killing a white person, while only 13% were executed for killing a black person. When will people realized that just because a person is of another race that they are more dangerous than another race. For instance, the 1972 Furman V. Georgia case abolished the death penalty for four years on the grounds that capital punishment was extensive with racial inequalities (Latzer 21). Over twenty five years later, those inequalities are higher than ever. The statistics says that African Americans are twelve percent of the U.S. population, but are 43 percent of the prisoners on death row. Although blacks make up 50 percent of all murder victims, 83 percent of the victims in death penalty cases are white. Since 1976 only ten executions involved a white defendant who had killed a bl... ... middle of paper ... ...2000. 333-356. Mauer, Marc. "The Race to Incarcerate." The Case For Penal Abolition. Ed. W. Gordon West and Ruth Morris. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars? Press, 2000. 89-99. McMurty, John. "Caging the Poor: The Case Against the Prison System." The Case For Penal Abolition. Ed. W. Gordon West and Ruth Morris. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000. 167-186. Ogawa, Brian K. Color of Justice: Culturally Sensitive Treatment of Minority Crime Victims. Allen and Bacon: Needham Heights, MA, 1999. Saleh-Hanna, Viviane. "Taking Too Much for Granted: Studying the Movement and Re-Assessing the Terms.? The Case For Penal Abolition. Ed. W. Gordon West and Ruth Morris. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000. 43-67. Leo, R and Ofshe R. The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: The Theory and Classification of True and False Confessions. 16 Studies in Law, Politics and Society 189, http://www.governmentguide.com/issues/govsite.adp?bread=*Main* deathpenalty.adp*Death%20Penalty*deathpencht.adp*Chart&url=http%3 A//www.governmentguide.com/ams/clickThruRedirect.adp%3F55102195 %2C21735549%2Chttp%3A//www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/(1997).
Racial discrimination has been an immense problem in our society for a very long time. The fact that the race of a victim plays a role in his or her sentencing is appalling. Discrimination within our society needs to come to an end. It’s frightening to think that if you are a minority facing a capital punishment case, which you might be found guilty only because of the color of your skin.
Meney, Florence. "La Peiné de Mort au Canada" ["Moving Towards Abolition"]. Radio Canada. N.p., 2007. Web. 23 Jan. 2014. .
The article revolves around the negative implications of the Kingston Penitentiary, a prison designed to provide reform for criminals through intensive labor, the use of the panopticon model, and implementation of harsh disciplinary practices. It represents a social institution which is expected to embody discipline and social control, and exert power over its inmates. However, the article highlights the institution’s inability to take effective disciplinary action against its inmates (Neufeld 1998) In addition, Michael Foucault’s theories are critiqued in relation to the faulty Penitentiary Model. Foucault’s understanding of power and surveillance provided little to no justification for the institution’s downfall. This paper will argue that the Penitentiary model failed due to poor administration, harsh disciplinary practices and the perpetuation of gender inequalities.
Davis discusses the history of the justice system and how the Penitentiary replaced capitol and corporal punishment. She defines Penitentiary as “Imprisonment was regarded as rehabilitative and the penitentiary prison was devised to provide convicts with the conditions for reflecting on their crimes and, through penitence, for reshaping their habits even their souls.3” though the idea of the penitentiary is arguable a new idea during the American Revolution. The penitentiary process was so that prisoners could learn from what they have done by a process of separation and rehabilitation. After slavery and during the early 20th century the level of crime rates rose during the early 1920’s to 1940’s. In the Article Less crime more punishment Adler4,
Tanovich, D. M. (2006). The colour of justice: Policing race in Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Irwin Law.
Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System “We simply cannot say we live in a country that offers equal justice to all Americans when racial disparities plague the system by which our society imposes the ultimate punishment,” stated Senator Russ Feingold. Even though racism has always been a problem since the beginning of time, recently in the United States, there has been a rise in discrimination and violence has been directed towards the African American minority primarily from those in the white majority who believe they are more superior, especially in our criminal justice system. There are many different reasons for the ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system between the majority and the minority, but some key reasons are differential involvement, individual racism, and institutional racism to why racial disparities exist in Institutional racism is racism that is shown through government organizations and political institutions. In a report done by David Baldus in 1998, he discovered that when it comes to the death penalty, blacks are more likely sentenced to death than whites, and those who kill whites are more likely to be given the death penalty than the killing of blacks (Touré).
Thompson, John Herd, and Mark Paul Richard. "Canadian History in North American Context." In Canadian studies in the new millennium. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 37-64.
An American resolution: The history of prisons in the United States from 1777 to 1877 by Matthew Meskell. Stanford Law Review.
Legislation will not help prevent racial bias in Death Penalty convictions. In August 2009, North Carolina 's Governor signed the Racial Justice Act, which was supposed to ensure that no one would be discriminated against in the sentencing to death. Somebody could use the “Racial Justice Act” to get out of the death penalty, regardless of how much evidence against the person and how brutal the crime. There were 37 prisoners under a sentence of death in the federal system, 43.2 percent were white, while 54.1 percent were African-American. This evidence supports the counterclaim because if someone is using the racial justice act to get out of the death penalty, then the deterrence rates will decrease because everyone else thinks that they can also use the act to get out of envedible.(Servatius,
Throughout the years the death penalty has been a very controversial aspect when it comes to punishment. Some groups of people believe that is should be abolished and other think that America should keep it. I’m here to say that I am not for the death penalty at all. To me the death penalty has a couple of flaws that I have an issue looking past. The death penalty is very unconstitutional for anyone who is put through it and it is very bias on who it chooses for the punishment.
The death penalty is legal in thirty-two states. I shall argue that capital punishment should be abolished in our country because it is never moral to kill a human being no matter what they have done, because it often costs more money to keep someone on death row than to keep someone in prison for life, because of the men and women who are wrongly accused of a crime they did not commit, and because death is the easy way out.
The death penalty or capital punishment is a controversial topic that many people like to ignore, or put on the back burner. The death penalty is a sentence, while capital punishment is the actual execution. It is wrong and immoral. In extreme crime cases where the death penalty would be considered, life without parole is the better consequence. Innocent people could, and have been put to death wrongfully. Racial bias, along with multiple other problems that this consequence holds shows why this sentence is an issue. Despite many flaws this sentence holds, states still actively use it. As of now, there are thirty-one states with the death penalty. The conversation is split between two groups. The people who want to abolish that sentence, and
According to the Oxford Index, “whether called mass incarceration, mass imprisonment, the prison boom, or hyper incarceration, this phenomenon refers to the current American experiment in incarceration, which is defined by comparatively and historically extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among young, African American men living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage.” It should be noted that there is much ambiguity in the scholarly definition of the newly controversial social welfare issue as well as a specific determination in regards to the causes and consequences to American society. While some pro arguments cry act as a crime prevention technique, especially in the scope of the “war on drugs’.
Sue Rex, A. and Robinson, G. (2004) Alternative to Prison Options For an Insecure Society. Uk: Willan Publishing.
Over two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The death penalty is racially bias, since 1977, 77% of death row defendants have been executed for killing white victims. Even though black men and women make up about half of all homicide victims. Since 1973, 140 people have gotten