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Effectiveness of capital punishment
Controversies on the death penalty
Arguments for capital punishment
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As an MHS twelfth grader and a student in Sociology, I humbly impart my standpoint to the Justice System regarding the case on whether or not to abolish capital punishment. There is indeed a present case as of today that one US state had declared their petition on permanently removing death penalty in the entire United States. I believe that this is a very callous appeal – one main reason we have capital punishment is to develop a sense of morality as well as protection within the whole society, not to put such great emphasis on the criminals who deteriorate the rest of civilization. Recognized to function as a restraint on committing numerous types of crimes ranging from murder to treason to theft, the capital punishment in the US should remain authorized despite its current variability to all affiliated states and thus continue to be applied. Many pro-death penalty analysts have come up to the point where their research and statistics have provided them the proof needed in order to justify what is right and what is wrong. About.com Liberal Politics article contributor Deborah White stated, “As of October 2009, capital punishment in the US is officially sanctioned by thirty-four states, as well as by the federal government. Each state with legalized capital punishment has different laws regarding its methods, age limits and crimes which qualify.” Although the executions hardly ever take place within these participating states, only a small fraction of murderers are predominantly being sentenced to death. This means that the states that regulated death penalties within their societies get to have fewer murders and crimes. However, it is said that “No state has an absolute right to put its worst criminals to death although a majo... ... middle of paper ... ...apitalpunsihmentuk.org. Capital Punishment U.K., 2009. Web. 7 March 2011. White, Deborah. “Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty and Capital Punishment.” About.com. About.com US Liberal Politics, n.d., Web. 7 Mar 2011. Carmical, Casey. “The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?.” Casey’s Critical Thinking. Casey Carmical, March 8, 2011. Web. 7 Mar 2011. Lowe, Wesley. “Pro Capital Punishment Page.” Wesleylowe.com. Wesley Lowe, 17 Jan 2011. Web. 7 Mar 2011. Anderson, David. “Summary of the Arguments for the Death Penalty.” Yesdeathpenalty.com. David Anderson, 2008. Web. 7 Mar 2011. Lee, Robert. "Deserving to Die." Taking Sides. Comp. Kurt Finsterbusch. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2004. Print. Fagan, Jeffrey. “Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A Critical Review of New Evidence.” Testimony to Jeffrey Fagan, Ph.D. Columbia Law School. 21 Jan 2005. Web. 14 Mar 2011.
Do two wrongs make a right? That is the question you should ask yourself. How can one life be worth more than another?s? Would you like to have your dignity, and even your basic human rights to stripped away from you at the flick of a switch or the pull of a trigger?
Adams, Cindy. “The Death Penalty as Just Punishment.” Does Capital Punishment Deter or is it a Biased Process? 3 Sept. 2008. 30 May 2010 < http://penal-system.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_death_penalty_as_just_punishment>.
Opponents of capital punishment are outspoken and vehement in their arguments. They believe the death penalty does not does not deter crime. They also hold the opinion that endin...
Since 1973 there have been a total number of one-hundred and fifty-one death row executions. (10 Reasons…, 1). Out of all of these executions only eighteen of them have ever had any further evidence to show that the guilty party was innocent. Many people argue that this is enough to make it to where the death penalty should not be used. However, that leaves one-hundred and thirty-three death row executions that have not been proven to have been the wrong person. If each individual that is sentenced to be executed has killed only one person than that is one-hundred and thirty-three people that have been killed. The fact remains that if there were no death penalty executions then there would be one-hundred and fifty-one people that have not been justified by their death. Although having eighteen innocent people put to death because they were wrongfully accused is a terrible thing, it does not even begin to oppose the one-hundred and fifty-one people that were killed because of the hate and fear that causes a person to bring this harm upon other people. Also many of these people have affected more than just one person. They may have killed or harmed multiple people. The people who oppose this are simply stating that the murderers’ lives are worth more than the people that they killed.
This country is determined to prove that killing someone under certain circumstances is acceptable, when in all reality there can be no rationalization for the taking of another human life. Killing is murder. It is as simple as that. There have been so many different controversies surrounding this debate that often, the issues become clouded in false statistics and slewed arguments. The basic fact remains that killing is morally and ethically wrong. This fact does not disappear by simply changing the term "murder" to "capital punishment". The act is still the taking of a life. On these grounds, the death penalty should be abolished.
"Death Penalty (Pros & Cons, Arguments For and Against)." BalancedPolitics.org - Free Balanced, Non-Partisan Discussion of Political & Social Issues for Debate (Pros and Cons - Decision Making Politics). 21 May 2009 .
"The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives." The Heritage Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
Narration: When it comes to the death penalty there are Opponents and Proponents and although both aim to defend and protect society from crime their beliefs differ in how to accomplish this.
Mappes, Thomas A., Jane S. Zembaty, and David DeGrazia. "The Death Penalty." Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 105-53. Print.
“The Death Penalty: Pro and Con.” Wgbh.org. WGBH Educational Foundation, 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Pasquerella, Lynn. “The Death Penalty in the United States.” The Study Circle Resource Center of Topsfield Foundation. July 1991. Topsfield Foundation. 03 Feb 2011. Web.
Americans have argued over the death penalty since the early days of our country. In the United States only 38 states have capital punishment statutes. As of year ended in 1999, in Texas, the state had executed 496 prisoners since 1930. The laws in the United States have change drastically in regards to capital punishment. An example of this would be the years from 1968 to 1977 due to the nearly 10 year moratorium. During those years, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment violated the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. However, this ended in 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed the ruling. They stated that the punishment of sentencing one to death does not perpetually infringe the Constitution. Richard Nixon said, “Contrary to the views of some social theorists, I am convinced that the death penalty can be an effective deterrent against specific crimes.”1 Whether the case be morally, monetarily, or just pure disagreement, citizens have argued the benefits of capital punishment. While we may all want murders off the street, the problem we come to face is that is capital punishment being used for vengeance or as a deterrent.
Fein, Bruce. "Individual Rights and Responsibility - The Death Penalty, But Sparingly." Speech. American Bar Association. Feb. 2003. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
The death penalty is legal in thirty-two states. I shall argue that capital punishment should be abolished in our country because it is never moral to kill a human being no matter what they have done, because it often costs more money to keep someone on death row than to keep someone in prison for life, because of the men and women who are wrongly accused of a crime they did not commit, and because death is the easy way out.
Capital Punishment is a controversial topic discussed in today's society. Capital punishment is often not as harsh in other countries as we may call harsh in our country. There is a heated debate on whether states should be able to kill other humans or not. But if we shall consider that other countries often have more deadly death penalties than we do. People that are in favor of the death penalty say that it saves money by not paying for housing in a maximum prison but what about our smaller countries that abide by the rule of the capital punishment. If one were to look at the issues behind capital punishment in an anthropological prospective than one would see that in some cases no one would assume that capital punishment here in the U.S. is bad. Now those opposed say that it is against the constitution, and is cruel and unusual punishment for humans to be put to his or her death. I believe that the death penalty is against the constitution and is cruel and unusual punishment. The death penalty is cruel because you cannot punish anyone worse than by killing them. It is an unusual punishment because it does not happen very often and it should not happen at all. Therefore, I think that capital punishment should be abolished, everywhere.