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Abolishing The Death Penalty In The United States

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The death penalty continues to be an issue of controversy and is an issue that will be debated and talked about in the United States for many more years. The death penalty is a punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime. In 1963 the United States abolished the death penalty, also called capital punishment. Through the 1960s, the Supreme Court battled many cases involving the death penalty and whether it should be allowed. The Supreme Court finally ruled a decision in 1976 that the death penalty can be enforced by the states that want it and not enforced by those who don't want it. To me not only is capital punishment unethical, useless and serves no purpose it is also biased and racist. Racial bias …show more content…

There are 31 states with the Death Penalty and of those is California: which has the highest murder rate out of all 50 states. My point is the Death Penalty does not change the crime rate at all, in fact, states with the death penalty rule have more violence than those who don’t. In 2006, the FBI Uniform Crime Report revealed that the area of the U.S. that was responsible for the most executions (the South with 80 percent) also had the highest murder rate, whereas the Northern areas that had the fewest ­executions (less than one percent), had the lowest murder rates. Capital Punishment is useless and it wastes resources and time. It wastes the time of judges, jurors, prosecutors and police officers. According to a study conducted by the University of Florida, approximately 90 percent of the nation’s leading criminologist say that using capital punishment is an extreme waste of time and as well as …show more content…

In fact, the death penalty will most likely never bring closure to anyone. The death penalty is supposed to divert their attention to the victim’s families and help them heal, provide services but in most states with the death penalty they don’t. It splits up families and causes never- ending pain to families. Jim O’Brien is one of the many family victims of the death penalty. In this case, his daughter was murdered by a serial killer and for 8 years O’Brien has been trying to find closure. Every day he wakes up to questions about a new appeal or a detective on his doorsteps. He wanted the serial killer to be put on death row but after eight years of trials and more trials, the idea of the death penalty changed his mind. Instead, the killer got life without parole and that taught O’Brien a powerful lesson. “I learned the hard way that the death penalty is an albatross over the heads of victims’ families”(O’Brien). A killing for another killing will not bring

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