Essay about Capital Punishment

Capital punishment does not consider the offender's need for rehabilitation.  The death of the condemned person cannot and never will bring back the loss of the victim.  Instead it causes pain to a whole new set of victims.  These victims are somehow forgotten by society.  Every other Thursday I visit a man currently on death row.  He has a beautiful 2 1/2 year old little boy.  When I pick his little boy up to go see his "daddy" his blue eyes are sparkling with excitement and anticipation.  How do you tell this little boy that his father is about to be killed in an electric chair?  How do you comfort a mother as she sits weeping in the moments before her son's execution?  How, I wonder, do these people feel about the justice that is being served?  In my involvement with offenders on death row, I see the pain of their families as they

One of many issues that have been core of moral and legal discussions over history has been the death penalty (capital punishment).

Historically, capital punishment has been used in almost every part of the world. Now, there are thirty six countries that have retained the death penalty in active use. That means that a lot of people, like Fein, agree that capital punishment is the right answer for the horrible crimes. Anything less than penalty of death will just trivialize the value of someone’s life. If someone’s did some horrible crime, like rape or murder, only way of stopping for something like that happens again is death for murderer or rapist. Yet, according to the N.C. Department of Justice, the the crime has declined in the years since executions stopped. Given this fact, there is no credible argument that the death penalty deters crime. It is hard to talk about this topic when you are not in position that you have someone that is murdered or raped. On the other hand, there are people that believe that no one is allowed to take someone’s life, no matter of any circumstances. Still, people like Fain have their arguments, and because of people like him we now have over 1300 executions that have occured in the U.S since

Keeping a prisoner in jail for life will be very expensive considering that it costs $80,000 a year; and the bad news is that the money comes from the taxpayer's pocket. Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man who might be executed. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year. This may sound awkward, but the death penalty saves lives. It saves lives because it stops those who murder from ever murdering again (Bryant). These opinions represent some of the strongest and most influential views that proponents hold. However, if our prison system could rehabilitate more effectively, perhaps those who murdered once, could change.

Many criminals take the lives of or hurt many people around them. They are later released after doing time in prisons to go on the streets again where they will do the same things over again. "[W]e reserve the death penalty in the United States for the most heinous murders and the most brutal and conscienceless murderers. To sentence killers like those described above to less than death would fail to do justice because the penalty – presumably a long period in prison – would be grossly disproportionate to the heinousness of the crime. Prosecutors, jurors, and the loved ones of murder victims understand this essential point…” Death penalty does the justice right for seriously violent criminals instead of having them do time in prisons to be released.

Nothing can rectify or reverse death, and in today’s current justice system, a criminal is as good as dead to the rest of the world. Life in prison is deplorable, and if the criminal is ever released, they are stigmatized and marginalized forever. They are unable to find a job and denied certain benefits, and are bound to return to a life of crime. The death penalty is unusual because it kills those who have nothing else to live for. If anything, it is rescuing these criminals from a bleak existence and putting them out of misery. By upholding the death penalty, the government is promoting revenge and retribution, which perpetuates a dangerous mentality-- that death and killing is acceptable as long as certain qualities are

Capital punishment (the death penalty) is a legal procedure which is known as the most severe punishment where the law authorizes execution as a punishment for criminals (Gerald, 2008). Many people claim that allowing such a punishment will help decrease the crime rate, and also give closure to the victim’s family, but if you as American citizens analyze this situation in more detail you can see that taking a life for taking a life is more of a personal matter than justice. When comparing the states that allow capital punishment with the states that have abolished it, the crime rate does not differ. Hence, those who argue that death row has a positive effect on making criminals

Capital Punishment would prevent convicted capital offenders from rejoining society. The possibility of a once convicted murderer being allowed to rejoin society can strike fear in the hearts of many especially the victim’s family. The punishment that was intended to be life in prison can often be reduced in many cases. In the United States the prisons are so overcrowded that lawmakers are releasing convicted criminals to make room for more criminals. Booming incarceration rates paired with reductions in prison spending force proceedings targeted at reducing crowding (Guetzkow & Schoon, 2015). A prisoner serving a life sentence for murder could be released by the way of good behavior or time served in order to free up space within the prison for more criminals. Many could argue over the possibility of prisoners

Although our nation has gotten away from it in recent years, we were founded by those who had strong religious beliefs. On this note there are several passages in the bible that speak of letting the punishment fit the crime, hence making the victim whole again. Take, for example, Leviticus 24:19-23. This passage implicitly reads as follows: “19Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: 20fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. 21One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death.” The principle here is making the victim whole. We must remember that when the circumstances warrant capital punishment the details of the crime are usually tremendously heinous. That being said sometimes capital punishment is the only fair and equitable punishment.

The principle of deterrence states that the higher the level of severity the punishment falls under, the less likely people will participate in the crime (Boss 229). However, there is no apparent correlation between the utilization of the capital punishment technique and the crime rate. Incapacitation ensures the criminal will never commit the same crime repeatedly by means of sentencing them to death. Utilitarians oppose this belief because life imprisonment without parole is the morally acceptable option and it is equally effective. Any premeditated infliction of pain, even on a murderer, adds more evil to the world. However, capital punishment has been proven to be more expensive than life imprisonment without parole. The cost negatively affects all of society because the citizens are given the burden of paying for the expenses through their

Capital punishment sends a very strong message to potential murderers, if you commit murder then you will be

Capital punishment has been around for many years as a way of executing criminals. Despite what most believe, capital punishment is not functional in the American society. Defenders of the death penalty often claim that the execution of criminals will teach others not to do bad, initially decreasing crime rates. Unfortunately, statistics prove that thought to be wrong. Capital punishment also has great flaws. For example, many innocent people have been put to death because of capital punishment. There also is no consistency. Two of the same crimes can be convicted in two different states and the consequences with be different for both offenders. The death penalty shows to be

Consider those jurisdictions that eschew capital punishment altogether. What sanction can such jurisdictions really apply to those who have already been sentenced to life in prison without parole? Sentences of this sort may take more lives overall by increasing the number of essentially unpunishable within prison homicides of guards and fellow inmates.53 Many murderers are killed in prison even in states that lack the death penalty.54 And if murderers are eventually paroled into the general population, some of them will kill again. Overall, it is quite possible that the permanent incapacitation of murderers through execution might save lives on net. A finding that capital punishment deters-and deterrence is our focus here-is sufficient but not necessary to find a life-life tradeoff.

According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, Capital Punishment is the infliction by due legal process of the penalty of death as a punishment for crime. Capital Punishment, also known as, the Death Penalty has been around for centuries. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org). Not only is Capital Punishment ancient, it is highly controversial as well. For many years, it has been a huge debate regarding Capital Punishment and its morale.

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