Stephen Nathanson's Essay 'An Eye For An Eye'

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.

Immigration issues are not issues only encountered here in the United States, but are also issues faced throughout the world. There have been numerous of debates on the issues of immigration in the United States. The most controversial was the passing of a new bill in Arizona. Governor Jan Brewer passed into Arizona legislature the SB1070, which became very controversial because of the demands that this law was enforcing. This controversial bill gives any Arizona law enforcement personnel full authority to stop any people who they think have reasonable suspicion of living in the United States illegally. It also gives

All of the research that I have done suggests that the death penalty is not a major source of deterrence for criminals to commit severe crimes such as homicide. In a 2009 survey of America’s top criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology and written by Professor Michael Radelet, eighty-eight percent of the expert criminologists stated that they do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent for criminals to commit homicide. Respondents to this survey were asked to base their answers on research, rather

Van den Haag argues how “There has been no conclusive statistical demonstration that the death penalty is a better deterrent than are alternative punishments" (1665). Even though van den Haag explains that deterrence might not be the best argument for supporting the death penalty, he does discuss how the certitude of the death penalty tends to be more formidable than imprisonment. Van den Haag also explains that even though the death penalty may not deter hundreds of murderers, is still deters some. “Sparing the lives of even a few prospective victims by deterring their murderers is more important than preserving the lives of convicted murderers because of the possibility, or even the probability, that executing them would not deter others” (van den Haag 1666).

First and foremost, Nathanson’s argument is that the death penalty cannot be justified by equality retributivism. He states, “In spite of the attractions of Kant’s view, it is deeply flawed. When we see why, it will be clear that the

Some of the arguments in support of death penalty are it decreases the chance of crime rate. In absence of death penalty there is higher chance of increase in crime rate. According to the time magazine, an estimated two hundred thousand people in United States have been victims of some kind of crimes. With not proper law criminals will feel more free to commit heinous crimes. To secure the community and create a sense of fear in criminals to commit horrible crimes, there is a need for death penalty.

The first argument that I shall contend with is that capital punishment does not deter crime. Opponents of capital punishment say the death penalty is not necessary. Other countries that no longer have the death penalty have not experienced an increase in the number of murders. The idea is that the death penalty does not deter crime. Countries such as Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium have not carried out executions since the early part of the century, yet these countries have not experienced a rise in crimr rates (Block, 1983). However, deterrence is not the question when you are looking at the retributive value of capital punishment. In short, deterrence can only work if the threat of punishment is combined with the conviction that the forbidden acts are not only illegal and therefore punishable but immoral. Without the conviction of morality, the easily frightened will not break the law, but the fearless will break the law, the irrational will break the law, and all others will break the law.

There is the notion that the death penalty will steer people away from committing crimes. In "a report by the National Research Council,

In the beginning, Mexico had hoped to gain from the agreement by a growth in the national output, falling unemployment rates, and increasing trade with the U.S. The NAFTA has, perhaps, benefited Mexico the most out of all the other two countries. This can perhaps be best reflected in the rapid growth of the Mexican maquiladora industry. “A maquiladora is a labor-intensive organization that imports inputs, often from the United States, and then processes and exports them. Because maquiladoras often link the border economies of U.S. and Mexican cities, these plants have been some of the major beneficiaries of NAFTA. In 1993, Maquiladoras numbered only 2,143. Just six years later, the number of maquiladoras had increased 73% to 3,703” (Fugate 2005). This shows that NAFTA has positively affected the Mexican economy, more than it has any other country.

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.

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.

Prisons for example, are a dominant sense of making the country feel safer because the criminals are being locked up. Also, the death penalty can be a form of deterrence towards other criminals because they are able to see what is happening to other criminals that commit the same types of crimes. Whether or not this does deter criminals from committing crimes is another story.

Studies of the deterrent effect of the death penalty have been conducted for                                               several years, with varying results. Most studies have failed to produce evidence that the death penalty deterred murders more effectively then the threat of imprisonment. The reason for this is that few people are executed and so the death penalty is not a satisfactory deterrent. If capital punishment were carried out

Rape is an atrocious crime where rapists are rightfully despised. There are several severe laws against rape and sexual assault. The media, leftist politicians, and feminists say that 1 in 5 women will get raped in their four-year college career. While rape has been a serious problem for decades, there is certainly no evidence that there is a national rape epidemic, or that rape or sexual assault is the social norm in this age. Rape rates, in fact, have been on a decline for the past century. The 1 in 5 number is not true.

Proponents of the deterrence argument say that the death penalty prevents murders because the killers, like everyone else, have a fear of death (Nathanson, 1987). I do not believe that this is a valid statement. Everyone does things that are risks to his/her life. Driving a car, riding a bike, rock climbing, swimming, smoking; we do these things for the need to get places, for adventure, excitement,