Capital Punishment in America
Capital punishment should be viewed as the stripping away of humanity from a person. The death penalty itself should be "executed" because of racial inequities, the concept of murder, the possibility of error, lack of deterrence, the cost, and an overwhelmed legal system. "The goal of capital punishment is revenge" (Introduction 1). Capital punishment is simply an outlet for the bloodlust of the American people (Introduction 1).
The death penalty is very discriminatory when it comes to racial issues. "The death penalty is fraught with abuses and the potential for abuse" (Moral Arguments 1). Capital punishment is
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"Since 1973, over eighty people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence" (Innocence and the Death Penalty 1). Statistics say that of the three-thousand six hundred people on death row right now, at least one hundred of them are innocent (Capital Punishment 1). When an innocent person is executed, the real killer is still on the streets ready to victimize someone else (Pragmatic Arguments 1). The most important problem is that when an innocent person is executed, they represent another human being who did not deserve to die.
"It is impossible to say with certainty whether capital punishment significantly reduces the incidence of heinous crimes" (President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice 143). The United States has one of the highest crime rates and we are the only western nation that still allows the death penalty (Pragmatic Arguments 1). "A 1995 Hart Research Poll of police chiefs in the United States found that the majority of the chiefs do not believe that the death penalty is an effective law enforcement tool" (Fight the Death Penalty 3). These police chiefs rated reducing drug abuse the highest at 31%, better economy at 17%, simplifying court rules at 16%, longer prison sentences at 15%, more police officers at 10%, reducing guns at 3%, and
Sara....do you think.....if I'm a good boy, they'll grant me parole somehow? I mean....I know it's life without parole but is that even set in stone? Do you think after about 25 years they'll see I'm really good and will let me out? I just....I just wanna taste vaginal juices. I'm so thirsty. And eating white trash ass in here is so unsatisfying. Day in and day out they take turns mounting me. After about the 6th hour and 24th inmate, I started to loosen up more and I think I liked it a bit. But my ass stays sore. I constantly am visiting the commissary for Vaseline. But there's just never enough. Must they be so rough? The first time they cornered me in the showers. I thought the guards would help but they all seemed to disappear. He slammed me against the wall and started to whisper terrifying things into my
Earlier in 2015, a man named Brock Turner, aged 20, was convicted on three counts of sexual assault after he was found sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster outside a fraternity house on the Stanford campus (Knowles 2016). Two Swedish students witnessed the event and pulled Turner off the young woman, holding him until the police arrived and in March 2016, the jury found Turner guilty (Knowles 2016). The case would have been forgotten, thrown under the immense pile of campus rape incidents in the US, had it not been for Judge Aaron Persky and his decision to award Turner a sentence of six months in a county jail and probation rather than the ten years in prison his conviction warranted (Knowles 2016). Outrage ensued surrounding this decision and the fact that Persky justified his choice by citing that, “a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him, I think he will not be a danger to others” (Fantz 2016). As if the victim of his crime hadn’t already been severely impacted by his actions, and will continue to be impacted for the rest of her life. Her suffering was compounded when she did not receive a simple apology or acceptance of responsibility, and also failed to receive the justice that the system should have awarded her. It is here that we see white male privilege and the culture of victim blaming coalesce with horrifying outcomes. The attention that Brock Turner has brought to this cultural issue is the reason for which he should remain a
The punishment reserved for the worst offenders can be either the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Today, there are thirty-two states that choose to execute criminals for their horrendous crimes and eighteen states that use life without parole to punish those who committed the worst crimes. Life without parole often called “Civil Death” is a punishment that specifies that offenders will spend the remainder of their life in Jail, while death penalty is a punishment allowing to put offenders on the death row for crimes they committed. At first sight death penalty and life without parole seem different but they have more in common than what meets the eyes. First, death penalty and life without parole are both the highest form of
The first death sentence that has been historically recorded was as far back as 16th century BC. This occurred in Egypt, the wrongdoer was accused of magic and he was then ordered to take his own life. In present day the death penalty has changed drastically. The death penalty has undergone many changes since then. In medieval times the methods used to kill people were inhumane and often times cruel. In modern times the methods to kill people are much more humane. The death penalty has been used less and less often and even outlawed in some states. The death penalty should be used more often and for more crimes. If the death penalty was used more often there would be a deterrence for future crimes, it is more cost effective, and it would
Throughout America crime is rising and the majority of the victims are youth. The government solution to tackling this issue is institutionalizing criminals, without a second look. However, the prison system created as a rehabilitation center, not a cage for humans. As, I read News One article “Should juveniles receive a life sentence without parole”, I became conflicted on whether juveniles should receive a life sentence without parole. On one hand, I believe if you do the crime, you do the time. Whereas the other part believes that juvenile are not capable of grasping the seriousness of their actions, so the government should not take away their opportunity to show the courts that they have grown. In my belief, giving a juvenile life without
Innocent people have also been executed due to capital punishment. In the United States 144 men and women have been released from death row including some who were minutes away from being executed.Wrongful execution of an innocent person can never be rectified. Which means if someone has been executed for a crime they didn't commit they can't do anything because the person is already dead.
Burke Marshall, the head of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice during the Civil Rights Era, once said, “ The death penalty, I think, is a terrible scar on American justice, especially the concept of equal justice under law, but also of due process. And it goes state by state, and it 's different in different states.” Burke Marshall’s thoughts were, and still are completely correct. The death penalty is more controversial now than ever before, because society has changed. The founding fathers of the U.S. wrote in the eighth amendment that all citizens had the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment. As time goes on, more and more people agree with the statement that capital punishment is cruel and unusual, and want it abolished. On the other hand, more and more people are starting to think that the death penalty is needed in society. Regardless of everybody’s thanatophobia, or fear of death, capitlal punishment has proven itself unnecessary and unfair because of racial influences on the judicial system, criminals do not get the chance to rectify their own mistakes, and capital punishment encourages more crime.
" To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice" ( qtd. in Anti-Death Penalty). Capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been around in some sort of variation for centuries. It is enforced upon criminals who have been convicted of the most heinous crimes, such as homicide. There have been debates throughout time as whether or not the death penalty is appropriate punishment. Valid arguments of support and contradiction of capital punishment have come up over time, making citizens believe it is a tough decision for lawmakers to choose whether or not to allow the death penalty. The decision is simple. Capital Punishment should be abolished throughout the country because it
There is no way to tell of the thousands of people that have been executed, which were innocent. Since 1973 more than 150 people have been released from prison with evidence of innocence. Studies have shown that the death penalty has zero to no effect on violent crimes, and it is an amazing waste of taxpaying money. They were wrongfully imprisoned due to mistaken eyewitness testimony, faulty forensic science, and false confession as a result of wrongdoing by the police and finally racial biased. That was just a minimal list of reasons a case could go wrong. There are many reasons why someone would be against the death penalty. For example, there are strong religious beliefs that one might have, the death penalty is and expression of the absolute power of the state. As of October 2015 there have been over 1,414 individuals in this country alone lethally executed. In the issue of the death penalty it all goes back to whether the death penalty deters future crime. I feel that one solution to this issue would be to get rid of the death penalty altogether.
There are people in the world who have done things that are so severe and heartbreaking they cannot be forgiven. People that harass society and put fear in the minds of our citizens such as rapists, mass murderers, and terrorists deserve the punishment that they gave to the innocent victims. The United States is still a part of the minority of countries that still use the death penalty, also known as capital punishment. The death penalty should be used because it gives closure the victim’s family, acts as a deterrent for any other people wanting to attempt a crime of the same extent, and permanently prevents any further horrendous crime from that person.
The use of capital punishment in the United States has been the center of a heated debate for nearly six decades. Prior to the 1960’s society accepted the idea that the interpretation of the fifth, eighth, and fourteenth amendment permitted the use of capital punishment; however, it was suggested in the 1960’s that capital punishment constituted “cruel and unusual punishment”. (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) “In 1958, the Supreme Court had decided that the Eighth Amendment contained an "evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society." This prompted abolitionists to advocate for the dismantling of the use of capital punishment, based on the idea that “the United States had, in fact, progressed to a point that its
Attention: Did you know that since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, 138 innocent men and women have been released from death row, including some who came within minutes of execution. In Missouri, Texas and Virginia investigations have been opened to determine if those states executed innocent men. (“The Pacts: 13 Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty”) To execute an innocent person is morally reprehensible; this is a risk we cannot take.
In today’s day and age, many people have had high minded and ordained question concerning capital punishment, or the death penalty. Through the passing of time, our society castigates transgressors with the death penalty. Many nations through time have decided to enact this harsh treatment. In the United States alone, the federal government has persevered to reinforce people to death (Marzillo 10). According to Wikipedia Encyclopedia, “Capital Punishment is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense.”
The death penalty is not supported by any records that legitimately prove claims of lowering crime rates; particularly homicides. In fact research says: “States that have death penalty laws do not have better crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws.” (Top 1 of 4). “And states that have abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates.” (Top 1 of 4). In short there is no evidence of the death penalty or the laws that establish it lowering crime rates. From its beginnings, the death penalty was established to scare people out of committing certain crimes. People who were given
Although one might think that capital punishment leads to innocent deaths, this is completely false. People against capital punishment constantly claim that there have been numerous cases in which we have executed an innocent man. But the truth is that we do not have any records of ever executing an innocent man. The idea that innocent people can get executed on accident is highly false and inaccurate. Also, it is perceived that capital punishment takes away freedom