According to some who believe in God and feel that capital punishment is acceptable under the scriptures, there is one main point, which is that "This is not an issue that may be measured accurately in terms of statistics. No one can ever know how many potential murderers have refrained from taking human life due to their fear of prosecution, conviction, and ultimate execution" (Jackson, 2003). It is also questioned during this same argument, though, by those who conclude that capital punishment is not a deterrent to violent crime, whether they should also be able to conclude that prison is not a deterrent either, since people seem to keep undertaking crimes, whether or not they think they will go to jail.
Another concern over capital punishment and violent crime is the issue of the mentally handicapped. They, along with juveniles, also undertake violent crimes on occasion. These mentally handicapped people, not to be confused with mentally disturbed or insane people, often have low IQs and do not realize what they have done. Capital punishment in their cases is not any deterrent. They do not even realize what they have done. One mentally handicapped man actually asked the jailers to save his dessert for him so that he could eat it after his execution. It was clear that he did not understand what the execution was about, no more than he understood the crime that he had undertaken. Executing people like this does nothing for society. Many people find it cruel, and even if it is not, it is certainly senseless. There are no significant lessons about not undertaking crimes that are learned by executing someone who is mentally handicapped (Reforms, 2002).
The same is true for juvenile offenders. Some juveniles who are convicted of violent crimes are locked away in prison until such time as they are old enough to be executed, which really does not teach juveniles anything valuable about capital punishment or avoidance of violent crime. More often than not, these juveniles are not executed, and most juveniles know that they will not receive capital punishment, even if they are tried as adults, so they are not deterred by the possibility (Radelet & Akers, 1996).
There are other arguments, but the most effective argument against capital punishment as a deterrent for violent crime appears to be the fact that crime has not gone down simply because capital punishment is out there (Death, 2000). States that have it do not have lower crime rates on average than states that do not have it, and that would indicate that capital punishment in and of itself is not preventing people from undertaking violent acts (Ikramullah, 2003).
Conclusion
Crime, including violent crime, has been with society virtually since the beginning, and it will remain with society until it ends. Nothing will prevent some people from undertaking violent acts, and capital punishment does not appear to be the answer. Sometimes, innocent lives are lost to this process, and many times the families of the victims do not experience the kind of closure that one would hope for simply because the offender has been executed. Since it would appear that even law enforcement does not see capital punishment as an answer to the problems of crime in society, one wonders why it is allowed to continue.
It is possible, however, that capital punishment would be a deterrent if it were used more swiftly and more often. Many people who are sentenced to death spend years in prison appealing their conviction and appealing their sentence, and this is a large waste of taxpayer money, as well as a huge burden on the court...
Death Penalty One is most deterred by what one fears most. From which it follows that whatever statistics fail, or do not fail, to show, the death penalty is likely to be more deterrent than any other. FACTS: If it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove statistically, and just as hard to disprove, that the death penalty deters more from capital crimes than available alternative punishments do (such as life imprisonment), why
An interesting and similar development in juvenile justice is the issue of life imprisonment as a cruel and unusual sentence for juvenile offenders. This issue is addressed by Mark Sherman (2009). Sherman states that Joe Sullivan was 13 years old when he attacked and raped an elderly woman. The court judged him as incorrigible and therefore sentenced him to life without parole. Another example is that of Terrance Graham, who
[DPIC] Similarly, many other researches were conducted but failed to offer any conclusive evidence as to the effectiveness of capital punishment in deterring crimes. The lack of consistency in these results presents a complex problem before us in evaluating the utilitarian value of death penalty. One more aspect to be considered under the utilitarian thought is the cost of executions. It is well-known that the legal cost of executions in
A good example is the 1985 murder of convenience store clerk Cynthia Barlieb, whose murder was prosecuted by a district attorney bent on securing execution for Barlieb's killer (Pompeilo 2005). The original trial and all the subsequent appeals forced Barlieb's family, including four young daughters, to spend 17 years in the legal process - her oldest daughter was 8 years old when Cynthia was first shot, and 25 when
Death Penalty: Social Attitudes and Modern Alternatives The issue of the death penalty raises deep emotions on all sides of the debate. Many feel that the death penalty no longer holds value as a tool for society to prevent heinous crimes. In the past, the prevalence of the death penalty created a measure of deterrence on social behaviors. However, in modern life, there is no longer is a measurable deterrence felt
" This article puts forward the notion that when analyzing the "...relationships between minority groups and mainstream populations," the issue of whether the use of "formal control is applied fairly and consistently between these different groups" is a pivotal place to begin (Ruddell, et al., 2004). It is pivotal because "injustice" not only can have "a corrosive effect" on the perception of the fairness (or unfairness) of the criminal justice system;
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now