The Death Penalty, Right or Wrong? 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. As it turns out though very few people are executed and so the death penalty is not a satisfactory deterrent. Use of the death penalty as intended by law could actually reduce the number of violent murders by eliminating some of the repeat offenders. More timely enforcement of the death penalty would help to reduce the crime problem by instilling a sense of respect for the law in that sentences are more than words on a page. 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. Is making the prisoner suffer by being in jail for the rest of his life is more torturous and inhumane than execution? Let us look at some of the methods of execution used in the past. Through the centuries people have been stoned to death, boiled in oil, skinned alive, crucified, roasted over fires on iron beds, pulled apart with horses, had their heads cut off, been hanged, been drawn and quartered, sawn in half, and broken with a wheel. (Hickman, 2003, p. 174) Hanging was the most widely used form of execution in the United States until the middle of the twentieth century. Other forms of execution used in America include the electric Death Penalty 4 chair, the gas chamber and, the current method of choice, lethal injection. (Hickman, 2003, pgs. 175-176) There are currently 38 states that allow the death penalty. These are their methods of execution: Electrocution: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia. Firing Squad: Idaho, Utah. Gas Chamber: Arizona, California, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina. &n... ... middle of paper ... ...hem just as clearly by taking their life. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Killing two is no better than killing one. Is this a daily act in which we as a country would like to partake? Or is this something we are reluctant to do? Think about it. Do we want this or don’t we? Are we murderers? Death Penalty 11 References Hickman, Tom 2003. Death: A User’s Guide. Westminster, MD: Dell Publishing Manderson, Desmond 1999. Courting Death: The Legal Constitution of Mortality. London: Pluto Press Radelet, Michael L 1995. Post-Furman Botched Executions. http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dppapers/mike2 Capital Punishment 2001 (Retrieved October 4, 2004) http://www.ojpusdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cp01.htm Demographics of the Death Penalty 1996 http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/states.using.txt The Death Penalty Is Not a Deterrent (Retrieved October 7, 2004) http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolishh/deterrence.html A Declaration of Life (Retrieved October 7, 2004) http://www.quaker.org/declaration-of-life.html
Each year there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed. From 1976 to 1995 there were a total of 314 people put to death in the US 179 of them were put to death using lethal injection, 123 were put to death using electrocution, 9 were put to death in a gas chamber, 2 were hanged, and 1 was put to death using the firing squad. The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United Sates today. Once a jury has convicted a criminal, they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase. If the jury recommends the death penalty and the judge agrees then the criminal will face some form of execution, lethal injection is the most common form used today. There was a period from 1972 to 1976 that capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Their reason for this decision was that the death penalty was "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Eighth Amendment. The decision was reversed when new methods of execution were introduced. Capital punishment is a difficult issue and there are as many different opinions as there are people. In our project, both sides have been presented and argued fully.
The death penalty is not cruel.[7] Forms of execution that are utilized are methods where the brain does not have a chance to feel pain.
The use of capital punishment is a contentious social issue in the United States. Currently, it is a legal sentence in thirty-two states and illegal in eighteen (States With and Without the Death Penalty). Capital punishment, also referred to as the death penalty is “the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime” (Oxford Dictionaries). A sentencing for the death penalty can be mete out due to a capital offense of treason, murder, arson, or rape. The most commonly used methods for capital punishment include lethal injection, handing, and electrocution. The act of capital punishment is unethical and immoral. Capital punishment is an ineffective method for penalizing criminals, and needs to be abolished from the United States’ criminal justice system.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the most common method of execution among states with the death penalty is lethal injection, which is authorized by 35 states, as well as the U.S. Military and the U.S. Government. Smaller numbers of states continue to use methods such as electrocution, gas chambers, hanging, and even firing squads
or hundreds of years people have considered capital punishment a deterrence of crime. Seven hundred and five individuals have died since 1976, by means of capital punishment; twenty-two of these executions have already occurred this year (Death Penalty Information Center). Many U.S. citizens who strongly support the death penalty believe that capital punishment remains the best way to protect society from convicted killers. I, however, disagree; I do not feel that execution best punishes criminals for their acts. Instead, in my opinion, the administration of the death penalty should end because it does not deter crime; it risks the death of an innocent person, it costs millions of dollars, it inflicts unreasonable pain; and most importantly it violates moral principles.
Over time capital punishment has been reformed from its original practice. Capital punishment has changed from public hangings to the current state of performing executions in a controlled environment with officials and physicians present. The states stopped preforming public executions due to riots that followed the e...
There are currently 32 states, including California, in America that actively use the death penalty. Since 1976, there have been 1378 executions, carried out in a number of different ways. The government has used gas chambers, firing squads, hangings, electrocution chairs, and lethal injections with the goal of providing an instantaneous and painless death. Lethal injection is the most common of these methods, using a fatal cocktail of drugs to immediately stop the victim’s breathing and heartbeat. This technique, however, will now undergo immense scrutiny and may even be outlawed in the wake of the Oklahoma incident.
In America, there have been five different execution methods used. These five methods consist of hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, electrocution, and lethal injection. The next five sections of this paper will cover each of these methods in greater detail.
www.religioustolerance.org/execute.htm It seems to me that, since more prisoners would prefer to be killed, it is a lesser form of punishment. However that by no means makes this cruel and degrading form of punishment acceptable. We are denying the right of life. Regardless of the fact that those on death row did take that right away from another human being, it is not our place to take theirs.
As Lethal injection, Electrocution, Gas Chamber, Hanging, or Firing Squad. Alfred Southwick was the first
There are many methods of capital punishment in the United States including lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, and hanging. However, lethal injection has been deemed the most ethical method of capital punishment in the United States. Lethal injection is practiced in 33 of 50 states in the United States. The other 17 do not practice capital punishment (Death Penalty Information Center, 2016). Life in prison has reflected a better psychological and medical state of mind and body, therefore, is a much less cruel and unusual punishment.
In order to understand capital punishment, one must first know the root of where and when it all began. In the United States it was first introduced through British influence , whenever European settlers arrived in the New World, they brought along the practice of capital punishment and America later followed suit . Since the 1700s there has been 15,760 executions, through various methods, such as electrocution, lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, etc; The primary method used when the death penalty was freshly introduced was hanging (Reggio).
Capital Punishment has been a form of punishment dating as far back as biblical times. Today there are over fifty countries around the world that utilize the death penalty. The top five countries to utilize the death penalty are Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, China, and The United States. In the United States, there are 32 states that participate in Capital Punishment. There are five forms of punishment used today. 14 of the 32 participating states, allow the individual to choose how they want to die. Each states legislature varies. Individuals that break the law can be put to death by firing squad, lethal injection, (The primary method in the United States), the electric chair, lethal gas, and the hangman’s noose. For centuries,
These offenders include murder, Treason, spying, sexual crimes such as rape, adultery, incest and sodomy. Sometimes, militaries will court Marshall an individual and sentence him to death for desertion, insubordination, cowardice and stirring up protests. The most common methods of capital punishment were decapitation, hanging stoning and firing squad. Various nations use the death penalty as a mean of controlling those who oppose the political system. Other nations especially those of Islamic beliefs use it for those who have other religions than Islam. Some states in the United States have abolished capital punishment. In the United States the use of the electric chain and the gas chamber were considered more humane than hanging or other gross method. Today, we have gone almost exclusively to death by lethal injection. In today’s society, public opinion on the death penalty varies greatly by state and for the crime in
Van Den Haag, Earnest, and John Conrad. The Death Penalty: A Debate. New York: Plenum Press, 1997.