Capital Punishment: Does Death Equal Justice?

1674 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Morality of capital punishment

Capital Punishment: Does Death Equal Justice? Capital punishment causes the death of someone because that person killed someone else, yet only murderers suffer such a fate. Rapists do not endure rape, thieves do not have their possessions robbed, and those convicted of assault do not undergo a similar assault. 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. Capital punishment has as its aim not only the punishment of criminals but also the prevention of similar crimes. Unfortunately, capital punishment does not in fact deter criminal acts, as most supporters of the death penalty expect. Michael Meltsner points out that "capital punishment was justified as a deterrent to crime, yet the killing [has been] done infrequently and in privacy" (3); these factors lead to the ineffectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent. The infrequent administration of capital punishment stems from the vast differences in each case and the legal variations among the states that permit capital punishment. Currently, t... ... middle of paper ... ...ne, no matter how heinous the crime. Capital punishment causes pain for the inmate, the inmate's family, the victim's family, and society as a whole. Death sentences should cease; instead of spending money on executions, states should use those funds to better the community and rehabilitate those individuals convicted. Every human life possesses value. Works Cited Bedau, Hugo. The Death Penalty in America. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co.,1964. Brasfield, Philip. "The End of Innocence." The Other Side Nov 2000:40. Death Penalty Information Center. 23 March 2001 . Latzer, Barry. Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998. Meltsner, Michael. Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment. New York: Random House Inc., 1973.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Bryan Stevenson's Close To Death: Reflections On Race And Capital Punishment

    1861 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many people are led to believe that the death penalty doesn’t occur very often and that very few people are actually killed, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,359 people have been executed as a result of being on death row since 1977 to 2013. Even though this form of punishment is extremely controversial, due to the fact that someone’s life is at stake, it somehow still stands to this very day as our ultimate form of punishment. Although capital punishment puts murderers to death, it should be abolished because killing someone who murdered another, does not and will not make the situation any better in addition to costing tax payers millions of dollars.

    Read More

  • Racial Profiling by Police in Canada

    2887 Words  | 6 Pages

    police then look for a suspect who might possibly have committed it. Profiling means that a suspect is discovered and the police then look for a crime for the person to have possibly committed” (Tator & Henry, 2003, p3).

    Read More

  • Film Analysis: "Scarface" vs. "The Departed"

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    Howard Hawks’s Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932) focuses on gang warfare and police intervention during a power struggle for Prohibition-era Chicago. This pre-Hays Code gangster film also contains a cry for political and social change regarding the way in which the federal government handles crime. The earliest to be compared, this film employs all of the characteristics of classic Hollywood style, as well as setting the mode for subsequent films of this type. Melodramatic in nature, gangster films use conventional characters such as heroes, heroines, and villains often placed in narratives that include predictable plot elements such as improbable reversals of fortune, accidents, and last-minute rescues. These characteristics can be identified in both Scarface and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Upon completion of critical analysis of both of these films, it may be recognized that Scorsese employs the use of allusion to previous works known in the art, and in particular, The Departed may be seen as paying homage to Scarface: The Shame of the Nation.

    Read More

  • The Expulsion of Freedom

    1396 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ns. Hobbes, insist that the nature of mankind is a state of savagery if left to its own device and the amalgamation of people under the confines of law allows people to seek the peace they thirst for. On the contrary Rousseau advocates that people are a naturally social species, and the submission to a greater good of the community by parting with their born rights is paramount to the superfluidity of the society. Both essentially agree that giving up natural right for the civil liberties within the state is a necessary exchange for the preservation of both the individual and the state itself.

    Read More

  • Criminal Profiling, A Powerful Tool

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    Winnerman, L. (2004, August 1). Criminal profiling: the reality behind the myth. American Psychological Association. Retrieved , from http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/criminal.aspx

    Read More

  • Criminal Profiling

    1761 Words  | 4 Pages

    Muller, Damon A. "Criminal Profiling ." Homicide Studies 4.3 (2000): 234-364. Web. 9 Apr 2011.

    Read More

  • Is Psychological Profiling the Solution to Terrorism?

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    Psychological Profiling is the identification of specific characteristics of an individual who has committed a certain crime using a detailed systematic observational ...

    Read More

  • Game Design Research Paper

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...gramming and also video games which is actually a large part of this career path. There are game companies that actually ask what games you have played and what you enjoy about them. If you do not like what you are doing then you will not do it well. All parts of game design take time and dedication. To succeed in this career I plan on going to college and majoring in game design, specifically game programming.

    Read More

  • Death Penalty

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    The use of the death penalty in the United States has been a great debate for many years. One of the major aspects of this debate is whether or not we should continue to use this form of punishment for criminals. In my opinion, the death penalty should be abolished because it costs taxpayers much more than sending an inmate to prison and there is no factual evidence that it has any greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment.

    Read More

  • The Forensic Science of Criminal Profiling

    1420 Words  | 3 Pages

    Offender profiling has been a new tool to criminal investigation. In pierces deep into the mind of the offender and provides non-traditional method of catching criminals. Not all crimes will call for the use of criminal profiling. Crimes of violent and serial in nature will be profiled. Crimes that will be profiled include: serial murder and rape, ritualistic crimes an...

    Read More

  • What Is Criminal Profiling?

    352 Words  | 1 Pages

    This week’s presentation topic was very interesting, it was criminal profiling. “Profiling is the process of drawing inferences about a criminal’s personality, behavior, motivation, and demographic characteristics based on crime scene evidence and other evidence” (Costanzo & Krauss, 2015, p.93). Basically based on crime scenes and evidence we can create a profile with characteristics that an individual has in order to know what type of individual the police should be looking for. The whole point of this to understand what type of individual fits the profile in order to investigate possible suspects. I personally believe that criminal profiling is extremely helpful when it comes to investigations and catching the bad guys. In fact, I believe

    Read More

  • Use of Typhoid as a Biological Terrorism Weapon

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    Salmonella typhoid bacteria have over 100 strains in the world today. Most cause illness in humans, but only a few of those strains cause the illness Typhoid Fever (Pike, 2014). Typhoid is a bacterium that has been very devastating to the human race for centuries. Typhoid thrives in undeveloped countries and countries with high populations and poor sanitation procedures. But, it is still a relevant disease here in the United States because of its ease of spread once someone is infected (Pollack, 2003). Antibiotic treatment is usually successful when treating Typhoid Fever, but it still has the ability to cause death, even with treatment of advanced medicine and antibiotics. When one thinks of salmonella, they will most commonly think of a food borne illness (food poisoning symptoms) caused by eating raw or undercooked animal products such as undercooked chicken or pork. That is the effect of some strains of the bacteria, but not the one that causes typhoid fever (Pike, 2014).

    Read More

  • The Use of Profiling to Combat Terrorism

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    The use of profiling as an investigative technique has been used for many years. Profiling is a prominent tool used in the field of criminal justice and criminology to better understand behavior, personality characteristics, and certain types of criminals. Using such characteristics as religion, race and sex have always been frowned upon but sometimes are needed to better categorize certain types of crimes and offenders. The three major goals of profiling are to provide a social and psychological assessment of the offender, to provide a psychological evaluation of belongings in possession by the offender, and to provide interviewing suggestions and strategies when captured. (Oconnor, 2011) By achieving each of these goals when profiling different offenders, links between certain characteristics of offe...

    Read More

  • The Idea of Gangsters in America

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    When we hear the words gangster or mobster, the first picture that comes to mind is bloodshed and violence. But Warshow shows us in his writings that this is not necessarily the case by giving us examples from the movie The Godfather of how the family is very similar to a normal everyday household yet very different at the same time. The family has this unique kind of courage that allows them to do what they want without having to care about what they can lawfully do. The family does not openly talk abou...

    Read More

  • The Gangster Genre as a Creation of the Necessity to Promote Civic Responsibility and Social Contentment With Ones Society

    2735 Words  | 6 Pages

    The Gangster Genre as a Creation of the Necessity to Promote Civic Responsibility and Social Contentment With Ones Society

    Read More

More about Capital Punishment: Does Death Equal Justice?

Open Document