Fairness of the Death Penalty:
The death penalty has been used across the globe for a long period of time as a means of punishment for offenders of serious crime. However, the use of this sentence has come under significant scrutiny in this century with regards to whether it's just and applied fairly. The scrutiny has contributed to the emergence of huge debates, especially after capital punishment has been used in high profile trials. As a result, capital punishment has become one of the most controversial topics throughout the world. The debates on whether it's just and applied fairly has been a major issue for policy makers, the criminal justice system, and the general public. From a theoretical perspective, sentencing a criminal to death is considered as an effective means of providing justice to victims and their families. However, when this practice is examined carefully, it emerges as an unjust form of punishment that is not applied fairly. This is realized when the death penalty is evaluated in light of various factors like deterrence, costs and rehabilitation where it seems inhumane and counter-productive.
The use of the death penalty as a form of punishment is not necessarily applied to the worst of the worst criminals. In most cases, the worst of the worst criminals do not receive the death penalty even though some of them plead guilty to murder. For instance, a former nurse escaped capital punishment because of an agreement with prosecutors though he pled guilty to committing murder...
The death penalty may exact a high cost but so does remaining behind bars for life imprisonment (Haag 1986). But righting wrongs in a society has a higher option than entailing the costs. Penalties are also acts of social retribution to restrain personal or private vengeance aimed at vindicating the law and social order, which has been injured or violated by a crime. Proponents or advocates of the death penalty
" 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;
Death Chamber Indeed, the death penalty is one of the most divisive issues in the entirety of the criminal justice system as it currently exists within the United States of America. Although many polls do suggest that a majority of Americans ultimately do support the employment of the death penalty, it faces stern and strong opposition from a violent minority that radically opposes the death penalty for a variety of reasons,
Our prejudiced minds and clouded vision make us believe that all black men are criminals resulting in a twisted criminal justice system. Thomas Sancton (1991) reveals, "...blacks and Hispanics are proportionally far more likely to be sent to death chambers than whites; that poor defendants are condemned more often than rich ones; that the existence of the death penalty, despite widespread beliefs to the contrary, in fact has no
The study also made an assessment of the 14 countries who eradicated the capital punishment. Murder went up by 7% from five years prior to the abolition period to five years following the abolition claimed by the study. Besides, researches were conducted by Prof. Issac Erlich from the years 1933 to 1969. He came to the conclusion that "An added execution per year might bring down the number of
Death Penalty Evolution of the Death Penalty in Supreme Court Jurisprudence Capital punishment has been in existence for centuries. As early back as the Eighteenth Century B.C., the use of the death penalty was found in the Code of King Hammurabi (Death Penalty Information Center [DPIC], 2010). The utilization of the death penalty for designated crimes continued through the years and became incorporated in Britain's penal system (DPIC, 2010). Britain's use of
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