The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

Although the death penalty may be a relief to victims’ families and is an ultimate warning, there are many persuasive debates that show that the death penalty is a cruel, misused method of punishment. Stephen Bright, a prominent anti-death penalty attorney, once said, “There seems to be a growing awareness that the death penalty is just another government program that does not work very well” (Lifton, 2000). After all, the death penalty is the only circumstance other than war in which it is legal for people to kill. Nearly five decades have passed since the United States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty had been applied capriciously in America. Rather than ending capital punishment, most states revise and adjust their laws to win the Supreme Court’s approval for continuing the execution process (Lifton, 2000). The death penalty conflicts with

Scientific studies have continuously failed to demonstrate that executions stop people from committing crimes. For instance, the southern states account for over 80% of the US executions and still have the highest regional murder rate. However, states without the death penalty have lower murder rates (Death Penalty: Facts, 2013). In 1997, homicide research reported that executions may actually increase the number of murders rather than deterring them. According to Michael McLaughlin, “The National Research Council report says all the studies on the possible deterrent effect of the death penalty suffer from fundamental flaws. The report identifies problems that include not taking account of the effects of alternatives to death sentences or insufficiently weighing how killers assess the risk of execution” (1). In other words, if the death penalty was actually beneficial, it would not make sense that Texas executes over twelve people a year and has a higher murder rate than Colorado which has executed one inmate over the last four