Capital Punishment

1025 Words3 Pages

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Hundreds of murderers are put into jail and then let out several years later. They say they have learned their lesson, but yet when they do get out they commit more crimes. Thus, sending them back into jail. The only way to make sure these ruthless murderers don’t commit these crimes again is by capital punishment. As the Bible says, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. " If someone commits a capital offense, they should receive a capital punishment, because the state won’t have to pay for the criminal’s lifetime in jail, it provides the most complete retribution and condemnation, and crime rates will begin to drop.
Not only should every state in America use the death penalty, it should also be done in a much quicker process. Following through with the punishments at a faster pace will cut down on the costs. Today, it costs approx. $34,400 per year for 50 years, at a 2% annual cost increase, plus $75,000 for trials and appeals to house a criminal with life in prison. This all adds up to about $3.01 million. The cost for a death penalty is $60,000 per year for 6 years, at 2% annual cost increase, plus $1.5 million for trials and appeals. This all adds up to be $1.88 million (www.geocities.com), there is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than the life in prison costs. Yet, there is also no question that over time the costs for life in prison are much more expensive than the costs of the death penalty. If the government makes it so the criminal has less time to appeal their sentence, the $1.5 million used for appeals and trial will go down. Plus, with DNA technology, today, we can be 100% sure that the offender did commit a capital crime, therefore they will have no need for appeals. If the government is not 100% sure than they will not give them this sentence, mandating that they do not need to appeal. If they continue to improve our DNA testing and make the time allowed for appeals shorter, if any, than it should save lives, time, and money (www.prodeathpenalty.com).
The ultimate penalty of death is necessary for the punishment of terrible crimes because it provides the most complete retribution and condemnation. The threat of execution is a major deterrent of crime. This is because death is so much more feared than the mere restrictions on one's...

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...s and criminals are not dealt with fairly?
Capital punishment is justified because there won’t be worries about the state paying for criminals’ lifetime in jail, it will provide retribution and condemnation, and crime and murder rates will decrease. Using capital punishment prevents many unnecessary deaths and crimes. If we no longer use it deaths and crimes will increase, due to the fact that the consequences are not severe enough to make the criminal think before they act. Capital punishment is justified! Without this consequence for serious capital offenders our lives would be much different. The offenders would be sentenced to life in prison and would have abundant amounts of time to plan a way of escape. If they were successful they would have the opportunity to commit more serious crimes. If they were not successful, they would be spending endless amounts of time with other inmates and everyone knows what happens when someone spends too much time with someone. They begin to annoy each other, and if someone annoys a violent criminal the outcome cannot be good! To prevent all of this from happening, we must enforce the usage of capital punishment.

Capital Punishment
1397 Words | 3 Pages
Many positions can be defended when debating the issue of capital punishment. In Jonathan Glover's essay "Executions," he maintains that there are three views that a person may have in regard to capital punishment: the retributivist, the absolutist, and the utilitarian. Although Glover recognizes that both statistical and intuitive evidence cannot validate the benefits of capital punishment, he can be considered a utilitarian because he believes that social usefulness is the only way to justify it. Martin Perlmutter on the other hand, maintains the retributivist view of capital punishment, which states that a murderer deserves to be punished because of a conscious decision to break the law with knowledge of the consequences. He even goes as far to claim that just as a winner of a contest has a right to a prize, a murderer has a right to be executed. Despite the fact that retributivism is not a position that I maintain, I agree with Perlmutter in his claim that social utility cannot be used to settle the debate about capital punishment. At the same time, I do not believe that retributivism justifies the death penalty either.
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2134 Words | 5 Pages
Capital punishment is a hotly debated topic in the United States, it has and will continue to be a controversial social issue. Arguments from each viewpoint are valid, but the view with the most reasons and well thought out arguments is that of those against capital punishment. It is faulty in its ways of executing innocent people. Unethical and immoral, when it is not used fairly. It causes some to take discriminatory actions towards African Americans and the mentally ill. Capital punishment is costly, it is practically destroying the United States economy. Lastly, it is a violation of our humanitarian rights. We should not resort to such harsh methods of punishment when there are other perfectly good ways to punish those who have done wrong. With the abolition of capital punishment, we can end a cycle of violence.
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The Ineffective Use of Capital Punishment
1461 Words | 3 Pages
“ An eye for an eye leaves us all blind doesn’t it “. Capital punishment cost the United states a lot of money. The death penalty can be unfair and can cause innocent lives to be took. The death penalty should be abolished because it is an ineffective way of punishment. There are trials that are unjust and many innocent people that have been killed. Putting people to death cost more than sending people to jail for the rest of their lives. Capital punishment doesn’t affect change.
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1177 Words | 3 Pages
I believe that capital punishment is necessary to ensure justice. Certain criminals commit crimes so great that they warrant death. The emotional tolls of the people around the victim can be alleviated by the death of the perpetrator. Prisons are inherently difficult to run, and capital punishment reduces the efforts that must be expended to successfully manage a prison. Capital punishment reduces crime in the way that it offers an incentive great enough to prevent offenses such as mass murder. Capital punishment holds much support in its favor, and I believe that it should remain.
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Argumentative Essay On Capital Punishment
1695 Words | 4 Pages
Capital punishment should be enforced in helping to protect the world at large, as the murderer has no chance of repeating an offense through an escape from prison to regain their freedom, as well as killing cellmates and prison workers. When a murderer receives a jail sentence there is always a possibility that he/she could escape and continue to kill more people, causing more trouble and distress to our already deteriorating society. There have been many cases regarding prison escapes from convicted murderers. A French criminal, Pascal Payet failed to hijack a protected truck in 1997 and killed the driver by firing at him 14 times. He was then sent...
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Preserving Capital Punishment: An Argument for Deterrence
722 Words | 2 Pages
Capital punishment should not be abolished. Lots of criminals get off way to easy especially with the prison system the way that it is now. If it were to be abolished I believe people wouldn’t be so intimidated and more severe crime would happen. Why get rid of something that has been so effective in the past. It was rarer for murderers back when people were hanged in front of the entire town. Capital punishment is a very effective punishment and should be kept.
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capital punishment
1281 Words | 3 Pages
The death penalty dates back to the eighteenth century. Criminals received many punishments throughout the centuries such as hangings, quartering, and burning at the stake. The death penalty consists of lethal injections today. The death penalty is a controversial topic because some people are for the death penalty and some people are against the death penalty. There is no one consensus for or against the death penalty. Although there have been many studies on the immorality of the death penalty and whether or not to limit the death penalty in some ways or just completely abolish it all together. It appears that more people are leading towards getting rid of the death penalty, but the courts want to keep it because the courts argue that that it is a successful fear tactic and may prevent future crimes. The death penalty is inhumane, biased, arbitrary, and an unsuccessful fear tactic so it should be abolished.
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Capital Punishment
1067 Words | 3 Pages
In 1997, 80% of Americans favored the death penalty. A recent national poll found that, that number has significantly dropped to an all time low of 63%percent. In addition, those favoring the death penalty dropped to fifty percent when those polled were asked to assume that the alternative to the death penalty was life in prison with no chance of parole. And, the amount of death sentences imposed in the United States during the recent years has dropped to the lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated. Hence, it would seem that our society’s attitude toward capital punishment is changing as well. What was once ordinary is now abnormal, and what was once essentially unquestioned is now questioned.The debate over the legitimacy or morality of the death penalty may be almost as old as the death penalty itself and, in the view of the increasing trend towards its complete abolition, perhaps as outdated. Capital punishment is horribly flawed, ineffective at deterring crime, completely unethical, outrageously expensive, and has no place in a civilized society.
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Capital Punishment
1889 Words | 4 Pages
The main dispute for those who favor capital punishment is due to the fact that death is the “ultimate incapacitation” (Siegel, 411). I think that this is the quintessential reason why the United States should continue to allow the death penalty. Without it there are ways of mitigating ones sentence, making it unfair to the victims. Sternberg states that taxpayers “should not bear the costs of keeping [those on death row] alive in prison” (Sternberg, 5). I agree with this statement because once a person is convicted of a harsh enough crime to be condemned to life in prison they should not be dependent on society’s hard earned cash. Not only does capital punishment clear up room in our already overcrowded prisons, but...
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Capital Punishment: The Best Solution
2375 Words | 5 Pages
There are many reasons why capital punishment is a good thing, and should be enforced and used more. First off, capital punishment is a good thing because it deters crime. For example, in the 1960s while the number of executions was decreasing, the homicide rate was increasing. As execution started to increase, statistics show that the homicide rate slowly decreased or stayed the same, but it did not increase. Fear of death deters people from committing crime. The...
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Argument for Capital Punishment
944 Words | 2 Pages
Putting people to death for committing murder makes other potential murderers think twice about killing someone. Capital punishment deters many murders every day. If all that had to be done was spend life in jail, getting free meals, having a roof over their head, and place to sleep at night, then killing someone wouldn't seem like such a risk. If their life is on the line, and they know if they get caught their going to be put to death, then most likely they will not commit the murder. Murderers are not fearless. They are just like any other human being, if there life is put on the line, there going to think twice about their decisions. For example, when cops catch someone in the act before they commit the crime, if they point there gun at the criminal, that person is going to get down on the ground and surrender. There afraid of the threat of being killed by the officer. Everyone has fear, and capital punishment no doubt deters murders.
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Capital Punishment Justified
1152 Words | 3 Pages
I believe that under certain circumstances that capital punishment should be allowed because if someone is going to commit mass murder they should pay with the ultimate human right which is of their life. This topic has been widely thought of in the world with a few philosophers really encompassing my views. Those are the views of Ernest Van Den Haag and Bruce Fein. Philosophers who oppose our views are such like Justice William Brennan and Hugo Adam Bedau. I will prove my point using the ideas of deterrence and morality of the issue of capital punishment. If the government would show that if you kill someone there will be a consequence for their actions and that the consequence would be equal to what they have done. The population will see that it isn’t worth taking another humans life. If we were to kill people that are committing these mass killings of innocent people there would not be as many criminals around. Therefore the streets would be a place people wouldn’t be afraid of anymore.
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The Death Penalty Should Be Allowed
1601 Words | 4 Pages
All in all, capital punishment should be allowed because compared with life sentence, it is better at to the cost, safety, and symbolic representation for the victims. If people got a savage bear that killed a person, the bear will be killed by people instead of being taken to a zoo.
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The Death Penalty Does NOT Reduce Crime
1529 Words | 4 Pages
Today's system of capital punishment tolerates many inequalities and injustices. The common arguments for the death penalty are filled with holes. Imposing the death penalty is expensive and time consuming. Each year billions of dollars are spent to sentence criminals to death. Perhaps the most frequently raised argument against capital punishment is that of its cost. Other thoughts on the death penalty are to turn criminals away from committing violent acts. A just argument against the death penalty would be that sentencing an individual to death prevents future crimes by other individuals. However, criminals are not afraid of the death penalty. The chance of a criminal being sentenced to death is very slim. The number of inmates actually put to death is far less than it was decades ago. This decrease in number shows that the death penalty is faulty. With that being true, many criminals feel that they can get away with a crime and go unpunished. Also, the less that the death sentence is invoked, the more conflicting it becomes when it is actually used. Alternative can be found to substitute for the death penalty. A huge misconception of the death penalty is that it saves society the costs of keeping inmates imprisoned for long periods of time. Ironically, the cost of the death penalty is far greater than the cost of housing a criminal for life. Appeals on the death penalty become a long, drawn-out and very expensive process. There are those who cry that we, the taxpayers, shouldn't have to "support" condemned people for an entire lifetime in prison-that we should simply "eliminate" them and save ourselves time and money. The truth is that the cost of state killing is up to three times the cost of lifetime imprisonment (Long 80). ...
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Benefits of the Death Penalty
1542 Words | 4 Pages
Have you ever thought about if the person next to you is a killer or a rapist? If he is, what would you want from the government if he had killed someone you know? He should receive the death penalty! Murderers and rapists should be punished for the crimes they have committed and should pay the price for their wrongdoing. Having the death penalty in our society is humane; it helps the overcrowding problem and gives relief to the families of the victims, who had to go through an event such as murder. Without the death penalty, criminals would be more inclined to commit additional violent crimes. Fear of death discourages people from committing crimes. If capital punishment were carried out more it would prove to be the crime preventative it was partly intended to be. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives were at stake. Use of the death penalty as intended by law could actually reduce the number of violent murders by eliminating some of the repeat offenders. The death penalty has always been and continues to be a very controversial issue. People on both sides of the issue argue endlessly to gain further support for their movements. While opponents of capital punishment are quick to point out that the United States remains one of the few Western countries that continue to support the death penalty. The deterrent effect of any punishment depends on how quickly the punishment is applied.
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Capital Punishment