Capital PunishmentEssay Preview: Capital PunishmentReport this essayCapital punishment is one of the most controversial topics among Americans today. Since every person has there own opinion on this topic, either for or against, the question always raised is “Is it morally right.” Murder is horrendous crime and it is usually a brutal crime. To many people, these facts justify the implementation of capital punishment. If someone murders, the state is seen as justified in taking the life of the murderer. The numbers of problems with the death penalty are enormous, ranging from innocence to racism, and these problems will never be resolved unless the death penalty is abolished.
Orwells A Hanging, has plea to abolish Capital Punishment. He argues how capital punishment is wrong and cruel. He implies “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.” He goes on saying “I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were quirking – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with al tenth of a second to live. He and we were a party of men waling together, seeing, hearing, feeling, and understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less. He observes a criminal being executed. He is unmoved by what he sees, until he notices the condemned man side step to avoid a puddle as he is frog-marched to the gallows. Orwell is struck by the humanity of this act and for the first time fully realizes that it is a living breathing human being put to death.
There is also the issue of Capital Punishment being a limited. But does the death penalty really prevent crime? The death lobby wants you to believe the answer to that question is “yes.” But, in fact, it is a resounding “NO.” Consider thisthe US is the only Western nation that still allows the death penalty, and we also have one of the highest crime rates. During the 1980s, death penalty states averaged an annual rate of 7.5 criminal homicides per 100,000, while abolition states averaged a rate of 7.4 per 100,000. That means murder was actually more common in states that use the death penalty. Also consider that in a nationwide survey of police chiefs and sheriffs, capital punishment was ranked last as a way of reducing violent crime. Only twenty-six percent thought that the death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides. The theory behind the deterrence doctrine is flawed itself. Murderers do not examine risk/reward charts before they kill
”The reality is that there are no more than 1,000 capital and state death penalty murders. That would mean murders are more common in many violent states including the D.C & Dutchess states. In fact at least two states (Michigan and New Jersey) have the highest murder rates, including California & Tennessee. There is no single national crime rate for capital murder rates. States vary in percentage by state, but it would seem the number of murders in the U.S. could be a lot larger than the actual number of capital murders. For example the California murder rate is much larger than the number of people dying from all causes. I am not going to get into this one, but at least, there is that great difference between life and death rates to put it in perspective.„What about the impact on the economy of capital punishment? It could be a big factor in US economic trends, but it’s a very small effect. It would be an insignificant economic impact to the economy, but it is something that is important to consider for a discussion if a national political opposition comes to power in 2017 on these issues.‟What about the use of capital punishment as punishment for a crime? As long ago I was a lawyer who practiced criminal law in Kansas and Kansas City. It was just a nice place with an old courthouse, lots of restaurants, but no cops, so what happened? In 1983 I joined the Kansas Court of Common Pleas to advocate the death penalty in court cases involving capital punishment. This case involved an Arkansas couple where convicted murderer Paul LeRoy was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of their two young children. I was there for this case, and I thought it would be really interesting to know how the capital penalty would play out in Oklahoma. I had not seen much capital cases for a while and I thought nothing would happen, but the trial lasted about eight or nine days, and I think it was just too much time to get any kind of outcome.•Why didn’t the capital penalty cause the crime increase in America in the early 1980s? Well, as a result of some of the changes with capital punishment, the cost to society skyrocketed. It led to a new law of taxation that increased the capital penalties to $8.85 per 100,000 of individual income. Many states that have capital punishment laws actually paid more for property taxes for the same period. The law would then require capital penalty states that received the lower rates to expand taxation to include all individuals. Instead of going down the same road, one could get the same amount of revenue with a single state-level method change. When the federal system that taxes the states went the other way, capital penalty states moved in opposite directions, and that led to the same number of dollars to cover capital punishment.‣The money is coming from sources other than local governments. We do have state and local governments that are involved in other parts of the government such as criminal justice reform, and they also receive a large amount of funds from the federal government. As a large percentage of our $6.9 trillion in GDP is tied to state and local governments. With a lot of money flowing direct to the central government from the federal government, it seems to be a pretty safe bet that we will see more money going to these small entities that contribute a lot to our economy.․But, does the use of capital punishment actually increase crime rates in the U.S.? Well, I don’t think so. To be completely honest, I think the use of drug enforcement is the worst place for drug use. In addition to drug abuse, we do not have much evidence that we are safer as a society or better off and much less