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Essay on The Death Penalty Is A Necessary Evil

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The death penalty is a necessary evil that has a positive effect on society today. It is an effective deterrent of crime as well as a safeguard for society. It also helps to keep order in our cities. It is a just and effective punishment for those who have committed crimes heinous enough to deserve death.

The death penalty is not a new idea in our world. Its origins date back over
3,700 years to the Babylonian civilization, where it was prescribed for a variety of crimes. (Capital Punishment p.10). It was also greatly used in the
Greek and Roman empires. It continued into England during the Middle Ages, and then to the American colonies where it exists still today. In the colonies, death was a prescribed punishment for …show more content…

In the May 11, 2008 issue of JET magazine it stated that over 50% of all blacks favor the death penalty. (JET Magazine). According to a U.S. Dept. Of Justice press release on December 13, 2008, "those executed were all males: 45 whites, 27 blacks, 1 Asian, and 1 American Indian. Five were hispanics...At the end of last year, 34 states and the federal prison system held 3,335 men and women (44 females) on death row: 1876 whites, 1406 blacks, 28 American Indians, 17 Asians, and 8 of other races. There were 283
Hispanic prisoners..." (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/cp97.pr).

Also a 1985 University of North Carolina study by economist Stephen K. Layson states that, ^Óevery execution of a murderer deters, on average, 18 murders^Ô
(http://www.rit.edu/~wwl2461/cp.html). This proves that without the death penalty our murder rate would be immense. For example in Utah on June 10,
1988 Arthur Gary Bishop was executed for sodomizing and then killing a group of young boys. In the first half of the year (January-June) there were 26 murders in Utah. In the second half (July-December) there were only 21 murders, an almost 20% drop in the murder rate.

(http://www.rit.edu/~wwl2461/cp.html).

The sanctity of human life is at the heart of a huge philosophical and spiritual debate over the death penalty. Many Catholics believe that all people^Òs lives are sacred and killing them

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