The United States is one of the few industrialized, democratic nations in the world which still permits capital punishment on a state-by-state basis. Not all states have the death penalty but executions are still carried out in the United States and Continue Reading...
However, the numbers used to report murder rates only tell us the number of crimes that have occurred. They tell us nothing about crimes that were never committed because of fear of the death penalty. The conundrum is that there is no realistic way Continue Reading...
death penalty has been a highly contentious issue in the United States, especially during the last fifty years or so. The reason for this is that human rights have become, more than ever, the basis of the American culture. The death penalty is a com Continue Reading...
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that people convicted of crimes should not be subject to excessive bail or fines, and that authorities may not inflict 'cruel and unusual punishments' (Eighth Pp). Ratified in 1791 as pa Continue Reading...
As such, it is unlikely to change in light of knowledge or information about the death penalty and its administration" (Vollum & Buffington-Vollum, p. 30). Furthermore, "those who scored higher on value-expressive attitudes were less accepting o Continue Reading...
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 c Continue Reading...
Capital Punishment Currently, 38 states have legalized capital punishment statutes. In most states, the reinstatements of the death penalty were a response to public outcry over the perceived increase of violent crimes. There are now more than 3,000 Continue Reading...
Abstract This paper examines the death penalty as a deterrent and argues that states have not only the right but the duty to apply the death penalty to criminal cases because it is incumbent upon states to back the law with force. The death penalty Continue Reading...
Research reveals that those who kill white victims are much more likely to receive the death penalty than those who kill black victims. One study found that for similar crimes committed by similar defendants, blacks received the death penalty at a 3 Continue Reading...
Death Penalty An issue as divisive as the death penalty has many arguments in its favor and many against it. Sorting through these different arguments to find a reasonable conclusion to either support the death penalty or not can be challenging. In Continue Reading...
Capital Punishment Debate The United States is one of the few industrialized nations in the world that still practices capital punishment. Most European nations and our northern neighbor Canada do not have the death penalty and in fact will not send Continue Reading...
Death Penalty as Retribution The Retributive Nature of the Death Penalty The peaceful fabric of society is torn whenever a crime is committed. In the case of murder, the suffering of the victim's loved ones can be unbearable and last for a lifetime Continue Reading...
Death Penalty All indications are that capital offenses are on the rise and the response to this phenomenon has been a cry to impose capital punishment as retribution. Certainly the issue is one of the most hotly debated in the world today; both for Continue Reading...
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 pe Continue Reading...
Capital Punishment The issue of the death penalty and capital crime has become one of the dominant issues debated in contemporary culture. The reason for this is firstly a moral questioning of the right to take a life, even when it is in retribution Continue Reading...
It would seem that many criminals would find this more amusing than frightening. They do not take their chances of being caught and subjected to capital punishment seriously enough to be frightened by the penalty like many assume they will be (van d Continue Reading...
Death Penalty Human civilization has come a long way in terms of upholding and safeguarding basic human rights to life, liberty, dignity, equality and justice. Indeed, this trend is evident in the worldwide human rights movement that protests and fi Continue Reading...
Coming across cases in which people were charged with crimes that did not commit and as a result risked being executed, people in Maryland appear to be unsupportive toward capital punishment, as they recognize that one cannot be brought back from th Continue Reading...
Opponents also provide evidence that the death penalty is unjust. Data show that death row prisoners are disproportionately low income, minority, and under-represented by the legal system. Thus, we many wonder if those who can't afford the best law Continue Reading...
However, sociologists argue that the retributive justice theory suffers due to the lack of appreciation of circumstantial causes involved in the commission of crime. By counting 'free will' as the only factor involved in a crime the deontological th Continue Reading...
However, the reasons why people commit crime are as different as the individuals themselves. Intentional murder comes in two different flavors. The first is the carefully plotted, well thought out, planned act. In this scenario, motivational theory Continue Reading...
Studies consistently and generally show that, all factors held constant, the race of the accused is a critical variable in determining who will be sentenced to death. Black citizens are, thus, subjected to double discrimination. From initial chargin Continue Reading...
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 cond Continue Reading...
[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 ev Continue Reading...
Death Penalty+ Annotated Bibliography It has been theorized and even proven that many laws that are in place in America are the product of JudeoChristian religious beliefs, practices and writings, that have over the years been toned down to better m Continue Reading...
Capital Punishment: Does it Reduce Crime? Capital Punishment is a social controversy that epitomizes the axiom "an eye for an eye." In the United States there are 38 states that utilize the death penalty, and usually for select crimes, including tr Continue Reading...
Politically correct or not, criminals should pay for the crimes they commit. In no society do we see no punishment for crimes. Walter Berns notes that Aristotle taught anger is just and those who kill should be held responsible. We do not live in su Continue Reading...
It violates the right to life...It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. There can never be any justification for torture or for cruel treatment" (White, n.d., pg. 1). In addition to the argument that it is a denial of human righ Continue Reading...
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 pa Continue Reading...
Moreover, in Perry v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 38 (1990), the Court used that decision to bolster Louisiana's attempts to forcibly medicate a prisoner in order to make him death-eligible. If one agrees that the death penalty is a just penalty for one who Continue Reading...
Racism is also a problem in the penal system. Furthermore, even if only one innocent person were sentenced to death it would be too many. 1. Perez's observations are most likely correct. Although whistleblowers perform an admirable and courageous a Continue Reading...
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 force Continue Reading...
Death Penalty for Juvenile Offenders Supreme Court by a majority decision on March 1, 2005 in Roper v. Simmons held that death penalty for juveniles was "cruel and unusual" and as such the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution fo Continue Reading...
The victim is unable to make peace with himself, say goodbye to his family or have his constitutional rights seen too. When a murder is committed, I believe that the perpetrator does not forfeit his rights, but rather some of the respect and convent Continue Reading...
And such an event, unfortunately, is all too possible, as evidenced by a review done by Bedau and Radelet in 1987. The authors used a variety of published and unpublished sources to locate information on potential capital cases in the United States Continue Reading...
Likewise, I believe that statutes of limitations might need to be lengthened or even eliminated so that older sex offence cases can be brought to trial. In Florida, as in other states, death row inmates spend inordinate amounts of time awaiting the Continue Reading...
Through which he concluded that each execution prevents around seven or eight people from committing murder (Worsnop 402). In 1985, an economist from the University of North Carolina by the name of Stephen K. Layson published a report that showed th Continue Reading...
4). They contend that most people on death row know they will not face execution, but will draw the legal fight out with appeals for as long as possible, and so, the death penalty is not a deterrent for them or others, because of the unlikelihood it Continue Reading...
