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Is the death penalty effective
Morality and death penalty
Debate arguments against the death penalty
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The death penalty or as it is formally called capital punishment should be totally abolished for many reasons. First and foremost no one should have the right to take anyone else’s life, “ neither individually nor as a society representative, has the right to take another man’s life, even apart from the seriousness of his guilt.” (Thinkquest,).
Killing is a sin under God. “Thou shall not kill” is one of the ten commandments. Although not everyone in this country is Christian our constitution was founded on the principle that we are one country under God.
Throughout history there have been a number of arguments in favor of capital punishment. These arguments include the deterrent argument, the retribution argument and the protection of the public argument.
The deterrent argument claims that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to criminals because it instills fear sufficiently to stop criminals. However, statistically this has been found not to be true. “None of the many studies about the matter has been able to show the death penalty is more deterrent than other punishments.” (EZ,). Most people who commit the most serious crimes do so under unnatural circumstances. Fear is not even present. “ Most serious crimes such as murders…are committed when the criminal is blinded with passion, when emotions prevail over reason.” (Collegain,). Even those who plan crimes such as murders do so thinking that they are not going to be discovered. “Criminologist assert that the best way to discourage murderers isn’t by increasing the severity of punishment but by increasing the possibility of discovering the crime and condemning the culprit.”(Thinkquest,).
Retribution as a reason for capital punishment assumes that the public wants revenge. Although victims of crimes and their relatives deserve to know that the criminal is being punished for their crime, our country beliefs in rehabilitation. Penalties do not “have to tend to the revenge or the mere punishment of the criminal, but must reeducate him and rehabilitate him morally and humanly; and what rehabilitation would be possible towards a dead man.”(EZ).
To protect the public from dangerous criminals it is not necessary to kill them. Again, the idea is that our penal system is supposed to rehabilitate people. In fact, in order to carry out justice and fearing the neglect of details “and legal means to which the sentenced can apply, protracts trials and postpones the execution, so the condemned its often changed from the man who committed the crime with the result of executing pe3ople different from the condemned ones.
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.
Special attention will be given to the topics of deterrence, the families of the victims, and the increased population that has been occurring within our prisons. Any possible objections will also be assessed, including criticism regarding the monetary value of the use of the death penalty and opposition to this practice due to its characteristics, which some identify as hypocritical and inhumane. My goal in arguing for the moral justifiability of capital punishment is not to use this practice extensively, but rather to reduce the use to a minimum and use it only when necessary. Above all else, capital punishment should be morally justified in extreme situations because it has a deterrent effect. Many criminals seem to be threatened more by the thought of death rather than a long-term prison sentence.
According to Radelet & Borg (2000), deterrence was, in the past, the most frequently-cited reason for arguments in support of the death penalty. The claim stems from a belief that potential criminals will be less likely to commit severe acts of violence if they know that those who carried out similar crimes before them were put to death – in much the same way that heads on pikes at the gates of a city were intended to deter criminal activity in the Middle Ages. Recently, however, many studies have concluded that the death penalty offers no significant deterrent effects, and the few which claim to find support for these effects have received substantial criticism (Radelet & Borg, 2000). The majority of both criminologists and law enforcement officers surveyed expressed that they do not believe the death penalty offers any difference in the amount of violent crimes committed (Radelet & Borg, 2000).
The death penalty, as administered by states based on their individual laws, is considered capital punishment, the purpose of which is to penalize criminals convicted of murder or other heinous crimes (Fabian). The death penalty issue has been the focus of much controversy in recent years, even though capital punishment has been a part of our country's history since the beginning. Crimes in colonial times, such as murder and theft of livestock were dealt with swiftly and decisively ("The Death Penalty..."). Criminals were hanged shortly after their trial, in public executions. This practice was then considered just punishment for those crimes. Recently though, the focus of the death penalty debate has been on moral and legal issues. The murderers of today's society can be assured of a much longer life even after conviction, with the constraints of the appeals process slowing the implementation of their death sentence. In most cases, the appeal process lasts several years, during which time criminals enjoy comfortable lives. They have television, gym facilities, and the leisure time to attend free college-level classes that most American citizens must struggle to afford. Foremost, these murderers have the luxury of time, something their victims ran out of the moment their paths crossed. It is time this country realized the only true justice for these criminals is in the form of the death penalty. The death penalty should be administered for particularly heinous crimes.
Capital punishment has as its aim not only the punishment of criminals but also the prevention of similar crimes. Unfortunately, capital punishment does not in fact deter criminal acts, as most supporters of the death penalty expect. Michael Meltsner points out that "capital punishment was justified as a deterrent to crime, yet the killing [has been] done infrequently and in privacy" (3); these factors lead to the ineffectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent. The infrequent administration of capital punishment stems from the vast differences in each case and the legal variations among the states that permit capital punishment. Currently, t...
The capital punishment has been cited as a reasonable sentence by those who advocate for retribution. This is essentially when it comes to justice so that people take full responsibility for their individual actions. Studies have proved that the decision to take away life of a person because they committed a certain crime serves to perpetuate the crime in question. It also serves to enhance the progress of organized and violent crime. It has been noted that various flaws in the justice system has led to the wrong conviction of innocent people. On the other hand, the guilty have also been set free, and a plethora of several cases has come up when a critical look at the capital punishment has been undertaken. Killers hardly kill their victims deliberately, but they probably act on anger, passion, or impulsively. In this regard, it is not proper to convict them exclusively without
From the time the first colonists arrived in the late Sixteen Hundreds Pennsylvania executions were carried out by public hanging (Cor.state.pa.us, 2014). In Eighteen Forty Three, Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish public hangings. From Eighteen Thirty Four until Nineteen Fifty Three each county was responsible for carrying out private hanging of criminal within the wall of the county jail.
Eliminating the death penalty as a method of punishment will only allow criminals to wreak havoc and chaotic in our community without the fear of death. When a person commits a crime, they are disrupting the order in the community. Justice help restore the disruption of that order. The Death penalty restore social order and give the states authority to maximized retribution for the victims. When the state does not have the authority to maximum retribution, the public may put the law in their own hands. Although, execution may be cruel and inhumane, it is nothing compared to the fate of many victims in the hand of the murderers. The purpose of the death penalty is to provide retribution for the victims and their families. However, retribution is not revenge. “Vengeance signifies inflicting harm on the offender out of anger because of what he has done. Retribution is the rationally supported theory that the criminal deserves a punishment fitting the gravity of his crime” (Pojman, 2004).
The death penalty continues to be an issue of controversy and is an issue that will be debated in the United States for many years to come. According to Hugo A. Bedau, the writer of “The Death Penalty in America”, capital punishment is the lawful infliction of the death penalty. The death penalty has been used since ancient times for a variety of offenses. The Bible says that death should be done to anyone who commits murder, larceny, rapes, and burglary. It appears that public debate on the death penalty has changed over the years and is still changing, but there are still some out there who are for the death penalty and will continue to believe that it’s a good punishment. I always hear a lot of people say “an eye for an eye.” Most people feel strongly that if a criminal took the life of another, their’s should be taken away as well, and I don’t see how the death penalty could deter anyone from committing crimes if your going to do the crime then at that moment your not thinking about being on death role. I don’t think they should be put to death they should just sit in a cell for the rest of their life and think about how they destroy other families. A change in views and attitudes about the death penalty are likely attributed to results from social science research. The changes suggest a gradual movement toward the eventual abolition of capital punishment in America (Radelet and Borg, 2000).
Almost all nations in the world either have the death sentence or have had it at one time. It was used in most cases to punish those who broke the laws or standards that were expected of them. Since the death penalty wastes tax money, is inhumane, and is largely unnecessary it should be abolished in every state across the United States. The use of the death penalty puts the United States in the same category as countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia which are two of the world’s worst human rights violators (Friedman 34). Lauri Friedman quotes, “Executions simply inject more violence into an already hostile American society.”
The Death Penalty should be discontinued to the families, human rights, and statistics. The families of the victim and the family of the one, who committed the crime, have no closure at all. The death penalty is killing a human for being convicted of a terrible crime one family may think its right but both suffer by their lost ones. “Although true closure is never really possible for the families, studies have shown that the continual process, along with the returning to court for many years, force families to confront the gruesome details of the crime many times over, making it impossible to get on with their lives.
On the other side of the debate, there are those that believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. For most criminals, they are aware of the fact that if they get caught, they will be sent to prison. However, other than being sent to prison, there are not really any other repercussions for committing a crime. They argue that if a person were to be presented with the possibility of the death penalty, they would more than likely think twice about their actions and realize that there are more risks than just im...
It is this contradiction in policy that confuses criminals and undermines any crime deterrence capital punishment was intended to have. Many people favor the death penalty as reparation for the wrong done to a victim’s family; however, in most cases, closure is not the result. Losing a loved one, no matter how that person is lost, is unbearable, irrevocable, and shattering. Pain like this is shocking and the victim’s family holds onto the hope that the execution of the murderer will bring relief and closure. Nevertheless, when the execution day arrives, the pain is not eased. No relief can be gained, for their pain is an unavoidable, natural process of life. Victims’ families have found such groups as the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and The Journey of Hope, which oppose the death
When someone is legally convicted of a capital crime, it is possible for their punishment to be execution. The Death Penalty has been a controversial topic for many years. Some believe the act of punishing a criminal by execution is completely inhumane, while others believe it is a necessary practice needed to keep our society safe. In this annotated bibliography, there are six articles that each argue on whether or not the death penalty should be illegalized. Some authors argue that the death penalty should be illegal because it does not act as a deterrent, and it negatively effects the victim’s families. Other scholar’s state that the death penalty should stay legalized because there is an overcrowding in prisons and it saves innocent’s lives. Whether or not the death penalty should be
Capital punishment is now illegal in many countries, like the United Kingdom, France and Germany, but it is also legal in many other countries, such as China and the USA. There is a large debate on whether or not capital punishment should be illegal all over the world, as everyone has a different opinion on it. In this essay, I will state arguments for and against the death penalty, as well as my own opinion: capital punishment should be illegal everywhere. Firstly, many believe capital punishment should be reinstated in the United Kingdom because of the financial cost of prisoners. Annually, it costs about £26,978 per prisoner when they are in jail.