Capital Punishment: Treat People the Way You Want to Be Treated

According to capital punishment supporters, many of these reasons of the anti-death penalty movement are false and are now wrongly accepted as fact. The argument that the death penalty does not deter crime is debatable. By executing murderers you prevent them from murdering again. If these people no longer exist then they obviously cannot commit more crimes. In addition, criminals have admitted, in thousands of fully documented cases, that the death penalty was the specific threat which deterred them from committing murder (Pro-Death Penalty, 2014). The opponents of capital punishment claim that the death penalty has caused and can cause the execution of innocent people. However, according to the supporters, no evidence indicates that innocent people have been executed. Upon reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, a Wall Street Journal study indicated that they were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed (Eddlem, 2002). Furthermore, advocates note that the

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.

Capital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, is a controversial subject which has been argued for decades due to the ethical decisions involved. People believe the death penalty is the right thing to do and that it is the perfect example of ‘justice’ while others believe that it is immoral and overly expensive. The death penalty is not a logical sentence for criminals, it doesn’t give them the right type of justice and it is immoral.

The use of the death penalty has brought peace of mind to our citizens. Though through the mid nineteen sixties until the early nineteen eighties only about six death penalties actually took effect. When the number of executions dropped, the murder rate rose from 5.6 per 100,000 people to 10.2 which is almost double the murder rate. A society cannot live in fear but needs to live in reassurance and protection. As of nineteen ninety-nine, the murder rate dropped dramatically to 5.7 because the execution rate increased to 47 executions. Pearce, Matt. "Counterpoint: Defending The Death Penalty." Points Of View: Death Penalty (2014): 6. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 23 Sept. 2014. This demonstrates the deterrent effect capital punishment has on society. The result is deterrence shows if one kills then one will be punished for their actions and crime.

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.

There are about 121 innocent people sitting on death row tonight. A study by the National Academy of Sciences reports that conservatively, 4.1 percent of defendants sentenced to death are indeed innocent. Capital punishment is abolished in many parts of the developed world, but is still carried out daily. In this day and age, its existence may seem questionable. After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991. Sure enough, thirty-two states, the federal civilian and military legal systems permit the death penalty. Its application is limited by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution to aggravated murders committed

Today in the United States there are thirty two states that use the death penalty and the manner in which it’s implemented is limited to five methods. While the United States is not the only country to still use capital punishment, we will only look at the United States laws, methods, and motivations. This paper will delve into the primary motivations for continued use of capital punishment for crimes while attempting to identify if the desire is to deter, rehabilitate, or a desire for retribution.

The finding of the study suggested that people are less likely to commit homicides when they actually see someone being executed. (McFarland, 1983). If criminals do not see the actual punishment that one is sentenced to actually carried out, then the subsequent criminals will not take the threat as seriously (McFarland, 1983). However, once the image of someone being executed is no longer recent, it seems the threat of perceived punishment is forgotten. Once the event has passed, people will have forgotten it happened, and the status quo will go back to normal (McFarland,

In most cases, crimes that are punishable by death include murder, or a variation of murder. In other words, a vast majority of these crimes involve death. In a country that takes pride in being, “the land of the free” it seems unnatural that we would kill anyone, regardless of the severity of their actions. It is hypocritical for to kill someone for killing someone else. It is much like the saying “an eye for an eye.” Rather than kill someone as retaliation for a lost life, a alternative option is often life in jail with parole; not only does it teach the felon a lesson, but it prevents the death penalty from having to be used. Bethany Webb whose sister was killed in the Seal Beach Massacre says, “I wanted that man to pay for his crimes. Even to suffer. But I thought -- and still think -- that a life term in prison without parole is as close to justice as I would ever get. Why should society answer death with more death?”(Webb). Webb whose mother was also shot in the massacre, and was the only survivor, has had to deal with a great deal of hardships. However, despite this, she doesn't believe in the death penalty. Instead, she feels that the government shouldn’t contribute to the abundance of murder and death our country is faced with, and that a life sentence is a better option. Therefore, the death penalty, like most things, has it’s own flaws and one major injustice of the capital offence is it’s hypocrisy.

Crime in America is something that has been around for many decades. While a large number of crimes are considered minor, many more result in the serious injury or death of another human being. “When we think about crimes, we … normally focus on inherently wrongful acts that harm or threaten to harm persons or property” (Bibas 22). The death penalty, also called capital punishment, has been used as a means of punishing the most violent of criminals in an attempt to prevent others from committing similar crimes. Over the centuries, the methods used to conduct these executions have evolved and changed due to effectiveness and public opinion.

Last but not least, from a sociologic perspective, capital punishment does not work as intended, to deter crime rate, rather, it might brutalize individuals, at the same time does nothing good to the victim’s family other than brutal vengeance. The origin of death penalty is served as a vehicle to put a warning for those potential future criminals that such kind of behavior will lead to death. However, so far, no clear evidence can be seen that capital punishment, as a mechanism of deterrent, actually cut down the local crime rate. Ironically, a reversal trend was found by Death Penalty Information Center (2010) in the USA that the death penalty leads to an increase in local murder rate. To die might be too easy for the mindless murderers. Also, for the relatives or friends of criminals put into death through capital punishment, they are more likely to be

The world can be a dark and cruel place to live… proof of this can be easily determined by watching the news, reading the newspaper, or watching today’s television shows and movies. Every day hundreds of horrendous crimes are committed; murder, kidnapping, child molestation, the list goes on and on. These crimes are sufficient proof that there is enough evil in this world.The death penalty has, and will be an extremely prominent controversial issue worldwide, yet I believe that it is important we remain advocates for the death penalty as it is a vital factor for keeping society under order. it is among the oldest criminal punishments, and has shown its effectiveness if it has stayed around this long. Capital punishment serves 4 general purposes: To punish crime, to prevent repetition of crime, to discourage future crimes, and save the taxpayers lifelong expenses for prison.

Four major issues in capital punishment are debated, most aspects of which were touched upon by Seton Hall’s panel discussion on the death penalty. The first issue stands as deterrence. A major purpose of criminal punishment is to conclude future criminal conduct. The deterrence theory suggests that a rational person will avoid criminal behavior if the severity of the punishment outweighs the benefits of the illegal conduct. It is believed that fear of death “deters” people from committing a crime. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives were at stake. When attached to certain crimes, the penalty of death exerts a positive moral influence, placing a stigma on certain crimes like manslaughter, which results in attitudes of horror to such acts.

Death penalty advocates argue that the execution of convicted murderers deter others from committing murder for fear that they will also be executed, and also that murderers will be incapacitated: once dead, they will have no opportunity to commit additional murders. Death penalty opponents dispute the deterrent effect of capital punishment, arguing that few murderers rationally weigh the possibility that they might face the death penalty before committing a murder. Finally, death penalty opponents do not dispute that execution incapacitates executed murders, but argue that life imprisonment without possibility of parole is equally incapacitating. (Jacob Sullum, Los Angeles)

Stats have proven that death rates are higher in American states with capital punishment compared to the states that do not use the death penalty. Canada and Europe both do not use capital punishment and have lower death rates than the United States which uses the death penalty. In 2006, homicide rates were taken per a population of 100,000. The United States had 5.7% while Europe had 5.4% and Canada had homicide rates of 1.85% thus indicating that capital punishment makes no difference in homicide rates. Using these 2006 homicide rates we