Does the Death Sentence Kill the Crime or the Criminal?

deter crime? A study into the effect of Capital Punishment said, 'the presence of the death penalty in law and practice has no discernible effect as a deterrent to murder.' How does this serve as a deterrent to crime? It offers the convict an easy way out with no reflection on what they've done. They don't learn from their mistakes and although there is obviously no risk of re-offence, the criminal cannot give

In almost every society, there are crimes and violations of human rights. To deal with these things, there are laws that prescribe the prevention of their occurrences. However, if the law is broken, commensurate punishment is put on the violator. Depending on the seriousness of the crime, the punishment may be light such as imprisonment for up to one year with corresponding fines, or it could also be severe as death penalty.

It is cruel to kill a person no matter how horrible the crime they committed is. It shows people that if you do something, the same will be done to you, it is an eye for an eye. This type of justice is completely wrong. The punishment should be geared not only towards scaring others from committing a similar crime, but also to correct the offender and reintegrate him/her back to the society. Therefore, punishment by death does not achieve this objective in any way.

Those that are for the death penalty claim that it will serve as a deterrent and is the only way for retribution against murderers. Both issues are highly debatable and have even been a subject of criticism. Punishment as a deterrence has been used for ages. This concept does work, however it should not be applied to all criminals, in my opinion. Some pro capital punishment individuals claim that it is an efficient deterrence against criminals. In an article “Death penalty is a deterrence”, the authors claim that by practicing the death penalty, violent crimes will decrease.”violent crime has declined eleven percent, with murder showing the largest decline at even more than twenty two percent. We believe that this has occurred in part because of the strong signal that the death penalty sent to violent criminals and murders.” These statistics taken from this article may be inaccurate and should be closely examined.

As Cass R states… “Capital punishment may be morally required, not for retributive reasons, but rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives”. Death penalty is one of those extreme punishments that would create fear in the mind of any person. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life.

The death penalty for starters essentially, doesn’t provide an end to the murdering. The death penalty basically “approves” murdering on terms of what is “just” and what isn’t just. However, who gets to determine ones actions as being “just” enough? Some death penalties are granted to people who have committed murder to many people, some death penalties are granted to criminals who have killed one person; there is no one law that specifies how one gets the death penalty. It isn’t a consistent form of punishment. Also, the death penalty just imposes fear among the people. Granted, if one is to get the death penalty they clearly are doing something that is highly against the law, but the death penalty promotes fear from the system. The death penalty doesn’t allow for much rehabilitation for the victim. They know going into prison what their sentence will consist of, the worst that they can get is a faster death day, so it doesn’t allow them to grow and change their

If criminals had the horrifying threat of the death penalty, they would think before commiting crimes. “The death penalty is a necessary tool to fight and deter crime. Capital punishment deters crime by causing

A study conducted by the Journal of Quantitative Criminology reveals that for every execution performed, fifteen murders take its place (Durlauf, et al). The study compiled execution statistics and murder rates across states in order to determine the efficacy of deterrence. Granted, executions do not directly lead to murders, but the data exposes the fact that the death penalty has not been successful in preventing them. In fact crime rates increase in states that resume the practice of the death penalty. For example, Florida had a twenty-eight percent increase in murder rates after executing a prisoner in 1979 for the first time after fifteen years (“White

American prisons today are filled to their capacities, yet crime here in America seems to have increased. I am speaking of one of the cruelest forms of crime that must be eradicated, which is murder. It seems as though a life sentence does not impose fear into modern day criminals, seeing that serious crimes are being committed more often now than in the past. I believe enforcing a death penalty on violent criminals would help them to come into a realization that they should begin to value not only their own lives but the lives of their victims beforehand and not after.

The death penalty is not effective in reducing the amount of crime that occurs in our country. There is no evidence that the death penalty discourages or deters crime. The psychological mindset of a criminal is that they are not capable of thinking of the outcome or consequences of their actions when they are committing a crime. The criminals who commit these crimes obviously are not in a normal state of mind, and do not think of outcomes logically or like most people do. Criminals most likely do not sit around thinking, “I won’t commit this murder if I face the death penalty.” Therefore, the use of the death penalty does not help reduce crime, so why use it?

To truly measure the effectiveness of the death penalty, you must measure the affect it has on the future actions of the accused, and in deterring people in society. The death penalty saves lives because, by executing murderers, you’re preventing them from killing again. The usual alternative to the death penalty is life without parole. When a prisoner is sentenced to life without parole he has a lifetime to commit other crimes while in prison or even attempt escape. In most cases though, people don’t spend the rest of their lives in prison if it’s

The death penalty does not deter criminals from committing crime. Most criminals who commit crimes do not have intentions of being caught and believe that they are invincible from the repercussions of their actions. Because of this, the death penalty really does not deter criminals from committing a crime. In fact, the death penalty could be considered an “easy way out” because the criminal does not have to spend several months, years, or even the rest of his or her life behind bars with little contact with the outside world. The criminal can just die and no longer have to suffer with knowing what he or she did, how it has affected others, and how it will continue to affect his or her life. Also, many criminals end up committing suicide in prison because they do not want to have to spend every day locked in a jail cell for extended periods of time.

Moreover, not everybody is afraid of being sentenced to death; some wicked person may even want to be condemned to death so that he/she can kill others in order to be executed (ACLU, 2007).Hence, death penalty should not be used as a penalty for murder, since it has neither intimidating effects nor crime rate diminishing effects, therefore death penalty should be abolished.

My assumption is that the death penalty does not deter people from crime. I do not believe that the fear of receiving punishment or justice will deter murder. When people commit crimes, they do not think or care about the consequences at that time. If that were true, people would not speed on highways or do drugs in fear that they would be prosecuted. I believe that with or without capital punishment people will still commit crimes. I believe that the death penalty does not have conclusive evidence to be a tool in the criminal justice system to deter people.

To do this, the punishment for crime must be harsh enough to deter potential criminals. Under this mindset, the death penalty makes perfect sense. Here is a punishment that truly makes a criminal pay for his crime, stops the criminal from committing it again, and deters other criminals from committing the same crime.