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Effectiveness of execution as a form of punishment
The effectiveness of capital punishment
Short note on criminal justice system
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Capital Punishment is an Effective Deterrent
In 1979, Lawrence Singleton raped and chopped off the arms of a 15-year-old girl named Mary Vincent in California. Singleton was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for this crime, but because of California statute he only served eight years of that sentence. When he was released in 1987, there was such uproar in California that Singleton had to be housed on the grounds of a prison because no community would accept him as an inhabitant. He moved to Florida that year, where his presence was a matter of great controversy. People cursed and spat at him when he roamed the streets. At age 69, just ten years after he got out of prison, Singleton stabbed a woman to death and was sentenced to death in Florida’s electric chair (“Crime Magazine”).
This story is not an unusual one; many repeat killers were out on parole at the time they committed horrendous multiple murders. This is an example of why I feel that people in society should believe that capital punishment is the only way to deter such killers from striking again. I believe that the death penalty is an effective deterrent when it is enforced, used consistently and if the process had fewer delays.
In an eight year period, from 1968 to 1976, when no executions took place in the United States, the number of murders rose at an alarming rate—in fact, it nearly doubled (HOOK, 43). In 1972 Texas commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment after the Supreme Court banished the death penalty. A recent study tells us what happened to those inmates when Texas stopped executing them. The study shows that since 1974 about three times as many prisoners have been released from death row by commutation, judicial reversals or dismissals as have been executed. After 47 inmates on death row were released into to general prison population, 12 of those 47 commuted prisoners were responsible for 21 serious violent offenses against other inmates and prison staff. I think this is a prime example of what can happen when these criminals are put in general prison population. Another commuted death row inmate killed a fellow prisoner while in general population and within a year of his release on parole a different commuted death row prisoner killed a girl (SOWELL, 106). In all of these cases, it’s my opinion that if the death penalty was used consistently and enforced the victims of these repeat offenders could possibly still be alive.
Summary of Video: A young man name Kalief Browder decided to take his life at age twenty-two after he served a long time in jail for something that he did not commit. He was accused of stealing a backpack and he was sentenced to one of the toughest jails in the country for three years. Half of the time that Browder served in jail, he was put in solitary confinement. After three long years in jail, Browder’s case was dismissed without ever getting a trial.
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.
...ed United States. U.S. Government Accounting Office. Capital Punishment. Washington: GPO, 1994 Cheatwood, Derral and Keith Harries. The Geography of Execution: The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America. Rowman, 1996 NAACP Legal Defense Fund . Death Row. New York: Hein, 1996 "Ex-Death Row Inmate Cleared of Charges." USA Today 11 Mar. 1999: 2A "Fatal Flaws: Innocence and the Death Penalty." Amnesty International. 10 Oct. 1999 23 Oct. 1999 Gest, Ted. "House Without a Blue Print." US News and World Report 8 Jul. 1996: 41 Stevens, Michelle. "Unfairness in Life and Death." Chicago Sun-Times 7 Feb. 1999: 23A American Bar Association. The Task Ahead: Reconciling Justice with Politics. 1997 United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Report. Washington: GPO, 1994 Wickham, DeWayne. "Call for a Death Penalty Moratorium." USA Today 8 Feb. 1999: 17A ILKMURPHY
Offenders given mandatory life in prison on charges of murder, on average only serve 16 years before being released back into society. One in three of these killers carries out a second murder even under the supervision of the probation officer.1 If we allow murderers to spend life in prison we run the chance of them getting out and killing again. Capital punishment can also deter future perpetrators from committing such a heinous crime, and it will end the prisoner’s suffering by giving them a humane death and give closure to the victim’s family. Without a concrete meaning of “life in prison” we need the death penalty to put an end to the most evil of people.
Chapman’s research shows evidence of 211 stabbings taking place in three years at one prison in Louisiana. Bloody riots, rape, robberies, and exhortation are just a few of the everyday occurrences that can be expected when entering a penitentiary.
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 ...
A review of the available evidence recently led a National Research Council committee to conclude—again—that we still do not know whether the legal status or use of capital punishment has any influence on homicide (Siennick, 2012). Research methods have shown that a short-term deterrent effect holds true only for non-felony homicides. Felony homicides actually increase slightly after an execution (Siennick, 2012). According to research done in Texas, felony homicides are the only type of homicides that are eligible for the Death Penalty. This does pose a problem for determining whether or not the Death Penalty is an effective deterrent or not. Land et al. suggests that their findings point to subtypes of potential murderers who might respond differently to the threat of execution (Sien...
Since 1976 there have been 1,434 executions in the United States, and additionally of those executions since 1973, 156 of those on death row were exonerated (Facts About the Death Penalty, 2016). In 2012 the National Research Council released a report titled Deterrence and the Death Penalty, citing that studies claiming there was a correlation with the death penalty and lower homicide rates. However this is not true, the death penalty has no effect on crime especially homicide rates. Additionally it is negligent of policy makers to rely on such reasoning in determining the continued validity of the death penalty for a wide variety of capital crimes.
“How the Death Penalty Saves Lives” According to DPIC (Death penalty information center), there are one thousand –four hundred thirty- eight executions in the United States since 1976. Currently, there are Two thousand –nine hundred –five inmates on death row, and the average length of time on death row is about fifteen years in the United States. The Capital punishment, which appears on the surface to the fitting conclusion to the life of a murder, in fact, a complicated issue that produces no clear resolution.; However, the article states it’s justice. In the article “How the Death Penalty Saves Lives” an author David B. Muhlhausen illustrates a story of Earl Ringo , Jr, brutal murder’s execution on September ,10,
Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of our country. In the United States only 38 states have capital punishment statutes. As of year ended in 1999, in Texas, the state had executed 496 prisoners since 1930. The laws in the United States have change drastically in regards to capital punishment. An example of this would be the years from 1968 to 1977 due to the nearly 10 year moratorium. During those years, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment violated the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. However, this ended in 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed the ruling. They stated that the punishment of sentencing one to death does not perpetually infringe the Constitution. Richard Nixon said, “Contrary to the views of some social theorists, I am convinced that the death penalty can be an effective deterrent against specific crimes.”1 Whether the case be morally, monetarily, or just pure disagreement, citizens have argued the benefits of capital punishment. While we may all want murders off the street, the problem we come to face is that is capital punishment being used for vengeance or as a deterrent.
Death penalty supporters believe that capital punishment is the only sure way to deter murderers from committing murders again. “The argument that murderers are the least likely of all criminals to repeat their crimes is not only irrelevant, but also increasingly false. Six percent of young adults paroled in 1978 after having been convicted of murder were arrested for murder again with six years of release” (Death Penalty Paper).
The origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?
Inmates are six times more likely to get off death row by appeal than by execution. The argument that murderer’s are the least likely of all criminals to repeat their crime is not only irrelevant, but also increasingly false. Six percent of young adults paroled in 1978 after having been convicted of murder were arrested for murder again within six years of release (“Recidivism of Young Parolees”).
Capital Punishment is defined as the legal infliction of the death penalty. The death penalty is corporal punishment in its most severe form and is used instead of life long imprisonment. Putting people to death that have committed extremely terrible crimes is an ancient practice, but it has become a very controversial issue in today's society. Capital punishment has been used for centuries, even the Bible contains over thirty stories or incidents about a person put to death for a crime they committed. Public executions stopped after 1936. The death penalty has been inflicted in many different ways. Today in the United States, there are five ways that the death penalty is performed. These criminals are put to death by a lethal injection, electrocution, lynching, a firing squad, or the gas chamber. These punishments are much less severe than the forms of execution in the past. In the past, people were executed by crucifixion, boiling in oil, drawing and quartering, impalement, beheading, burning alive, crushing, tearing, stoning, and even drowning. The methods used today compared to those of history are not meant for torture but instead for punishment for heinous crimes and to rid the earth of these dangerous people. The majority of America supports the death penalty.
Unfortunately, the Peterson's case is not unique. Their case is only an example of one of a million crimes that are committed daily in which the death penalty could be applicable to punish the perpetrators and therefore stop them before they attack, kill, rape, or rob another victim. However, not all of the murderers or serial killers are captured; and most of the time, it takes many years to get enough evidence to give closure to their innocent victims and their families.