The Importance Of Crime Rates In The United States

In “How the Death Penalty Saves Lives”, written and published by David B. Mulhausen on September 29, 2014, Mulhausen speaks of the reasons why the death penalty is a proper way to bring murderers to justice. He believes that “some crimes are so heinous and inherently wrong that they demand strict penalties” (Mulhausen). Not only does he believe that the death penalty is useful to set criminals to justice, but he also believes that the enforcement of the death penalty deters crime rates.

When we get into how society and people look at crime, it happens in every city, every neighborhood, people are victims every day, businesses, and even property. Crime dates back since colonization and the rates have varied over time, believe it or not, crime has decreased over the years. As a matter of fact, the United States has been on a decline. The crime rate for the year 2000 was a total of 11,608,072 a declining year in 2015 with a total of 9,225,197. (U.S. Department of Justice)

The death penalty is the ultimate punishment. There is no harsher punishment than death itself. This nation, the United States of America, is currently one of fifty-eight nations that practice the death penalty, if one commits first-degree murder as of 2012. People that believe in the death penalty also believe that it will deter murders. In this paper I will argue that the death penalty does not deter criminals and that this nation should outlaw the practice.

Crime exists and occurs in societies worldwide; it takes place in both developed as well as in developing countries, therefore the occurring of crime is also true in the case of a great nation such as the United States. There exist several major factors that directly as well as indirectly foster the rise of crime in societies such as poverty, injustice, drug addiction, unemployment, psychological factors, family background, racism and volatile political scenario. While all of these factors foster acts of crime in society, poverty is undoubtedly the most powerful and most influential factor that leads to crime because it encompasses several other interrelated issues thus making poverty the prime contributor to crime in the United States; and

According to Siegel and Worrall (2014), there are various factors that criminologists believe affect the crime trend in the United States. Most of these factors are socioeconomic and demographic. One’s age, mental health and the ability to seek and receive treatment for mental health issues, the ability and ease of getting a gun, or even drug use are all possible factors that influence the crime rate in the United States. One must also though consider that when the economy is on the brink of collapse, crime can go up; however, when the economy is succeeding, crime rate will go down. What is crime like in the United States?

In society’s day and age, Americans believe that crime has been steadily increasing. This perspective is based on information provided to the public by criminologist. Our society relies heavily on statistical data to measure criminality and the effectiveness of the laws that govern society. This data is collected and formulated to create what is known as national crime reports. These reports were implemented to improve the structure of the laws that govern our society. In addition these reports record criminal activity, the type of crimes committed, the locations of criminal trends, the volume of crimes committed, and the

I am from different areas in the United States such as Missouri, Utah and Pennsylvania, which is where I was born. I have never been in trouble with the law nor really interacted with it so I can’t really say much. I will say that in Pennsylvania I use to live by Erie which had a pretty high crime rate and have been in the less admired parts of town or what people call the ghetto. I always saw the news of shootings and robbing mostly within that area. I was always upset by it, but I realized there was nothing I could do as a 10 year old. Missouri and Utah where I lived hardly had any crime I have experienced. The main issue there was speeding.

According to Crime in America.Net the crime rate in 2015 increased (“Incarceration in the US”). This increase is attributed to the growing number of cities, metropolitan areas and the concomitant people living in poverty. A topic for debate has been how this country can stop the increasing crime rate. The best methods are to have stricter gun control laws, easier and more affordable access to a top-rate education for the lower economic classes, and the creation of good paying jobs with benefits that provide incentives to get off welfare.

Over centuries there has been a great deal of discussion concerning problems that relate to criminals, crime, and the in succession of justice in the United States. The desire to have factual information has been a concern for a long time. According to Hurst (2013:277), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been keeping track of all crimes in the United States. Crime rates are categorized and stored in a crime index. The FBI crime Index stores every property and violent crime report in the world. By utilizing standard definitions and procedures established by national programs the information is placed in the form of a statistical value to inform citizens of crime rating in their communities.

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

People want to feel safe wherever they go, whether it is in their family’s,friend’s or even an acquaintance’s home, and shopping malls, hotels or wherever others go and not be scared by others. Often there are crimes every day and many fear that they don’t want to be involved in it. Often criminals appear nonchalant about what happens to them no matter what they did and their crimes. They don’t seem scared. The death penalty is ineffective at deterring and in some cases, a waste of resources such as money. The deterrence theory is what most people like to believe is to work as intended, to keep others from doing crime though it still happens. People still do crimes nowadays and there are usually some cases on the news of murder, killings and other heinous crimes so in which in this the following will talk about its effectiveness in deterrence, and the death penalty deterrence theory and is it worth the price to keep the death penalty around.

Death penalty, which is often described as capital punishment, is pronounced on offenders who have committed extremely heinous crimes. It is an ancient practice but in the United States it has faced several controversies in the latter half of the twentieth century (Robertson, 14). Does the death penalty serve any purpose in our current judicial system? Criminal executions were first implemented in our society as a crime deterrent to ensure that the offenders cannot engage in future crimes but time has shown that cost, errors, and effectiveness have led many to believe there are alternatives available.

While performing an analysis of punishment, the question of deterrence is paramount; it seems inevitable that only good results of deterrence will be able to enact law towards its favor. In fact, death penalty is considered as huge warning to most of the criminal to decrease murder rate. When we evaluate the consequence of capital punishment more deeply, every criminal minded person will be aware of it and will think twice before committing any crimes. If they commit crime even after knowing its consequence, they deserve to die. “Murderers volunteer for the risk of capital punishment, and the punishment they volunteered to risk should be imposed if, in the view of the courts, they are guilty and deserve it” (Van). Edward Koch, former Mayor of New York City, has admitted that, “If the death penalty had been a real possibility in the minds of those murderers, they might well have stayed their hand. They might have shown moral awareness before their victims died, and not after”. Capital punishment also allows the victims to threaten the murderer by simply reminding

Capital punishment is beneficial to the community. It provides the society with a sense of security. The death penalty contains a positive influence on the future. A heavily debated topic is, “Does capital punishment deter people more than a life sentence to prison?” An explanation on why will be covered later. An issues many people have with capital punishment, is when it is just or not just. This is a topic many stray away from, because it is difficult to decide. Finding the right consequence for an action is difficult. While this paper is for the use of capital punishment, it is clearly not needed for every crime, or even every murder. Overusing capital punishment, such as using it for every murder, will negatively impact the country, and not using it has the same effect.

I currently the Chief of Police in Savannah, Georgia and the problem that our city in currently facing is an increase in the crime rate in the city especially in the area of violent crimes. Violent crime rose 8.8 percent in 2014 over the previous year with robberies and shooting accounting for most of those crimes. The city reported "32 homicides in 2014, which was two more than 2013, and the number of rapes increased from 49 to 64". The City Manager and City Council has informed me that these numbers are unacceptable and in an effort to control, the rising crime rate I propose the following measures (McCammon, 2015).