Death Penalty An Insufficient Form Of Punishment example essay topic

This brings me to thesis two. The most compelling arguments against capital punishment can be made on the basis of its actual administration in our society. I will list five of the usual points. 1. The possibility of error. Sometimes a person might be put to death who is innocent.

2. Unfair administration. Capital punishment is inflicted disproportionately on the poor and minorities. 3. Weakness of the argument from deterrence. The claim that the threat of capital punishment reduces violent crime is inconclusive, certainly not proven, extremely difficult to disprove, and morally suspect if any case.

4. The length of stay on death row. If there were ever any validity to the deterrence argument, it is negated by the endless appeals, delays, technicalities, and retrials that keep persons condemned to death waiting for execution for years on end. One of the strongest arguments right now against capital punishment is that we are too incompetent to carry it out. That incompetence becomes another injustice. 5.

Mitigating circumstances. Persons who commit vicious crimes have often suffered from neglect, emotional trauma, violence, cruelty, abandonment, lack of love, and a host of destructive social conditions. These extenuating circumstances may have damaged their humanity to the point that it is unfair to hold them fully accountable for their wrongdoing. Corporate responsibility somehow has to be factored in to some degree. No greater challenge to social wisdom exists than this. The conclusion of the matter is that the present practice of capital punishment is a moral disgrace.

The irony is that the very societies that have the least right to inflict it are precisely the ones most likely to do so. The compounding irony is that the economic malfunctions and cultural diseases in those same societies contribute to the violence that makes it necessary to unleash even more repression and brutality against its unruly citizens to preserve order and stave off chaos. To the degree that society provides opportunities for all citizens to achieve a good life in a sensible culture, it is reasonable to believe that the demand for capital punishment will be reduced or eliminated. The fact that our prisons are so full is the most eloquent testimony imaginable of our dismal failure to create a good society.

Massive incarceration indicates the bankruptcy of social wisdom and social will. It points to the shallowness of our dedication to solving the basic problems of poverty, moral decay, meaninglessness, and social discord. Meanwhile, our leaders divert our attention with the alluring fantasy that capital punishment will make our citizens more secure against violent crime. THE CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN WITNESS What, then, is the role of the church? It is two-fold. (1) Ideally and ultimately, followers of Jesus are the salt of the earth, light of the world, leaven in the secular loaf.

As such, Christians go into the world with the aim of moving, lifting, and luring society in the direction of ethical love. The vocation of Christians is to hold up ethical love as "a transcendent gauge exhibiting the moral defects of society and thus spread the infection of an uneasy spirit" (A.N. Whitehead). In particular, Christians should work to overcome the larger injustices, social disarray, and cultural illness that create an atmosphere conducive to violence. This work will involve both political action and cultural transformation. (2) Pragmatically and immediately, Christians will translate ethical love into mandates of secular justice and work for the best approximation of the norm that is possible under given circumstances. Hence, Christian witness may be but is not necessarily directed against capital punishment on moral grounds in principle.

The choice is a matter of practical discernment and social wisdom in a particular situation. Christians should insist that if capital punishment is to be practiced, it must be administered in a just way. On this count, present-day society fails miserably. My prediction is that a society that becomes sensitive enough to make sure that the death penalty is administered in a just way will then do away with it altogether in favor of more humane practices such as life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. In short, for the moment the Christian witness to society is this: first demonstrate that capital punishment can be administered in a just and efficient manner. Then we will debate with you as to whether capital punishment is in principle necessary, fitting, and right or whether a humane society will find non-lethal alternatives to protect citizens from persistently violent criminals.

Until then the church should say "no" to this extreme measure. Each year there are about 250 people added to death row and 35 executed. The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment enforced in the United Sates today. Once a jury has convicted a criminal offense they go to the second part of the trial, the punishment phase. If the jury recommends the death penalty and the judge agrees then the criminal will face some form of execution, lethal injection is the most common form used today. There was a period from 1972 to 1976 that capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Their reason for this decision was that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment. The decision was reversed when new methods of execution were introduced. Capital punishment is a difficult issue and there are as many different opinions as there are people. In our project, both sides have been presented and argued with focus on several topics as listed below. This page was constructed to show the different opinions held by the members of our group. There is plenty of useful information within our work.

We hope you find it helpful and informative. Chance for convict to "pay-back" society Abolitionists believe that the offender should be required to compensate the victim's family with the offender's own income from employment or community service. There is no doubt that someone can do more alive than dead. By working, the criminal inadvertently "pays back" society and also their victim and / or the victim's family. There is no reason for the criminal to receive any compensation for his work. Money is of no value in jail.

One of the most well known examples of the criminal contributing to the betterment of society is the case of Leopold and Loeb. Leopold and Loeb were nineteen years old when they committed "The Crime of the Century". In 1924 they kidnapped and murdered a fourteen year old boy just to see what it was like. They were both spared the death penalty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Together, their accomplishments include working at hospitals, teaching illiterates to read, creating a correspondence school, making significant developments in the World War II Malaria Project and writing a grammar book. "An inestimable amount of people were directly helped by Leopold and Loeb; both of them making a conscious commitment to atone by serving others" (Horwitz 109).

(Horwitz, Elinor Lander. Capital Punishment U.S.A. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1973.) Cruel and unusual punishment Dustin Cox: The strongest argument against using capital punishment for retributive purposes, is the argument that capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, condemning cruel and unusual punishment, is used to protest capital punishment. The fallacy of this argument is that it appears to be a red herring argument, one that takes attention away from the facts of the case. When the constitution was drafted, capital punishment was practiced widely in this country, yet it was not specified as wrong or as cruel and unusual. Many of the framers of the constitution endorsed capital punishment, as did philosophers from which the constitution draws from.

John Locke went as far to say that murder is not intrinsically wrong. "Everyone, as he is bound to preserve himself and not quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind" (Locke p 57). How can murder not be immoral? Citizens under a social contract, agree not to kill only because others also agree not to kill.

It is the function of penal laws to prevent murder by demonstrating to everyone that it is not in their best interest to murder. So how can the constitution be brought into this argument, since it makes no mention of capital punishment? Leslie Cantu: Even though the retentionists pose some interesting arguments, I myself feel that the abolitionist perspective contains much stronger backing and more reasons for opposition, the first of which is that the death penalty is wrong morally because it is the cruel and inhumane taking of a human life. The methods by which executions are carried out can involve physical torture. "Electrocution has on occasion caused extensive burns and needed more than one application of electric current to kill the condemned" (Amnesty 6). (Amnesty International Report.

The Death Penalty. England: Amnesty International Publications, 1979.) To many opponents, capital punishment is a euphemism for legally killing people and no one, not even the State, has the authority to play God. Xavier (Frankie) Ynez: Officials often defend this punishment as not being cruel and unusual, but how can they defend this opinion in the case of John Evans who was executed by electrocution in 1983? According to witnesses at the scene Mr. Evans was given three charges of electrocution over a period of fourteen minutes. After the first and second charges Mr. Evans was still conscious and smoke was coming from all over his body as a result of his flesh burning. An official there even tried to stop the execution on account of it being cruel and unusual punishment, but was unsuccessful.

Witnesses later called the whole incident a "barbaric ritual". Doesn't deter crime Leslie Cantu: Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to crime. "Expert after expert and study after study have emphasized and emphasized the lack of correlation between the threat of the death penalty and the occurrence of violent crime" (Meador 69). (Meador, Roy. Capital Revenge: 54 Votes Against Life.

Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1975.) Isaac Ehrlich's study on the deterrent effect of capital punishment in America reveals this. It spans twenty-five years, 1957-1982, and shows that in the first year the study was conducted there were 8,060 murders in 1957 and 65 executions. However, in the last year of the study, there were 22,520 murders committed and 1 execution performed. The absence of deterrence is clearly shown. Less expensive than execution Leslie Cantu: The belief that execution costs less than imprisonment is false. "The cost of the apparatus and maintenance of the procedures attending the death penalty, including death row and the endless appeals and legal machinery, far outweighs the expense of maintaining in prison the tiny fraction of criminals who would otherwise be slain" (Draper 46).

(Draper, Thomas. Capital Punishment. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1985.) Moral argument Leslie Cantu: Even though the retentionists pose some interesting arguments, I myself feel that the abolitionist perspective contains much stronger backing and more reasons for opposition, the first of which is that the death penalty is wrong morally because it is the cruel and inhumane taking of a human life. To many opponents, capital punishment is a euphemism for legally killing people and no one, not even the State, has the authority to play God. Abel Martinez: "Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized society. It is immoral in principle, and unfair and discriminatory in practice.

It assures the execution of some innocent people. As a remedy for crime, it has no purpose and no effect (American Civil Liberties Union National Office 2-16-95)". Violate human dignity / rights Abel Martinez: Anti-death penalty supporters argue the death penalty is unconstitutional -- "Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized society. Jessica Spinler: An argument against the death penalty is the basic moral issue of conservation of human rights and humanity.

The argument of retribution would be even easier to dismiss if it consisted only of a base thirst for revenge. "Society must manifest a terrible anger in the face of a terrible crime, for nothing less will suffice to "remind us of the moral order by which alone we can live as human beings" (Hertzberg, 49)". This is a serious moral argument. Opponents of capital punishment must be willing to answer it on its own terms.

They say that. ".. the death penalty demeans the moral order and execution is not legalized murder -- nor is imprisonment legalized kidnapping -- but it is the coldest, most premeditated form of homicide of all. It does something almost worse than lowering the state to the moral level of the criminal: it raises the criminal to moral equality with the social order" (Hertzberg, 49). Indeed, one of the ironies of capital punishment is that it focuses attention and sympathy on the criminal. Possibility of innocent death Leslie Cantu: The death penalty is irrevocable. "In case of a mistake, the executed prisoner cannot be given another chance. Justice can miscarry.

In the last hundred years there have been more that 75 documented cases of wrongful conviction of criminal homicide. The death sentence was carried out in eight of these cases" (Draper 47). Undoubtedly many other cases of mistaken conviction and execution occurred and remain undocumented. A prisoner discovered to be blameless can be freed; but neither release nor compensation is possible for a corpse. Jessica Spinler: Despite the moral argument concerning the inhumane treatment of the criminal, we return to the "nature" of the crime committed. Can society place an unequal weight on the tragically lost lives of murder victims and the criminal?

This is not an exam question in a college philosophy course but a moral conundrum at the core of perhaps the most intriguing issue facing the U.S. Supreme Court today. Punishment is meted out because of the nature of the crime, devoid of any reference to the social identity of the victim. Compassion and political calculation have combined to transform victims and their advocates into a potent lobbying force. Beginning in California, 1987, the Supreme court carved out a crucial exception: Neither the life of the victim nor the suffering of his survivors could be a factor in any state or federal case punishable by death (Shapiro, 61). The catch is that every reduction in the elaborate legal process that has evolved to ensure that only the guilty die increases the chances that an innocent person, victim, will be subjected to this most irreversible and final of punishments, injustices. The possibility of an innocent person being put to death is another factor some people have against the death penalty.

According to the 1987 Stanford University survey, at least 23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century (Kramer, 32). Opposing the Death Penalty "Capital punishment is the infliction of the death penalty on persons convicted of a crime" (Americana 596). Killing convicted felons has been one of the most widely practiced forms of criminal punishment in the United States. Currently, the states that do no practice the death penaly are Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin. However, for the remaining states that do practice the death penalty, it has been a topic of debate for many years. There are two parties who argue over its many points, including whether or not it is a fitting and adequate punishment, whether or not it acts as a deterrent to crime and whether or not it is morally wrong.

These two classes of people can be grouped together as the retentionists, or the proponents, and the abolitionists, or the opponents (596). For the retentionists, the main reasons they are in support of the death penalty are to take revenge, to deter others, and to punish. They are most concerned with the protection of society from dangerous criminals. In spite of all this however, the death penalty is not a good form of criminal punishment for many reasons: it is morally wrong, it does not act as a deterrent for crime, it is irreversible and can be inflicted upon people who are innocent, it is more expensive than imprisonment and those who are convicted commonly use the costly process of appealing the decision and there is no chance to make restitution to the victim and / or the victim's family. "People that favor the death penalty agree that capital punishment is a relic of barbarism, but as murder itself is barbaric, they contend that death is a fitting punishment for it" (Jayewardene 87). Retentionists are most often subscribers to the "an eye for an eye" principle and feel that execution is the only way to satisfy the public as well as themselves.

Who doesn't enjoy it when, for example, someone steals ten dollars from you and then the person who stole your money has the same thing happen to them? Retentionists feel much the same way about murderers who are sentenced to die. As far as they are concerned, the criminal brought his punishment upon himself; they deserve what they get. When proponents of the death penalty are thrown the arguement of capital punishment being a tragic loss of human life, the majority respond "even in the tragedy of human death there are degrees, and that it is much more tragic for the innocent to lose his life than for the State to take the life of a criminal convicted of a capital offense" (Bedau 308). Fear of death deters people from committing crimes, proponents say. They also believe that if attached to certain crimes, the penalty of death exerts a positive moral influence by placing a stigma on certain crimes like manslaughter, resulting in attitudes of disgust and horror to such acts.

Furthermore, retentionists insist that the deterrent influence of the death penalty reaches across state lines into jurisdictions that have abolished it, and so all benefit by its continued use. Perhaps this is the intended goal of the Violent Crime Control And Law Enforcement Act of 1994. It "establishes constitutional procedures for the imposition of the death penalty for federal crimes. It applies to federal statutes that previously carried the death penalty and creates many new capital offenses.

As a result of the Act, the death penalty may now be imposed for nearly sixty federal crimes. New capital offenses include the murder of a federal prisoner serving a life sentence, and drive by shootings in the course of certain drug offenses" (Internet 3/8/95). Those in support of capital punishment think achieving model citizens and a better society happen through fear and intimidation. Retentionists do not see the death penalty as being morally wrong. For them, the most likely source of constitutional difficulty with capital punishment is the prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment", otherwise known as the Eighth Amendment. When told by the opposing side that the death penaly is crue. inhumane and degrading, most proponents argue that murder is too.

In fact, some retentionists consider execution to be more humane that life imprisonment because it is quick and instantaneous. Those in support of capital punishment feel that making the prisoner suffer by rotting in jail for the rest of his life is more torturous and inhumane than execution. To sum up the basic views of the proponents, imprisonment is simply not a sufficient safeguard against the future actions of criminals because it offers the possiblity of escape and release on parole. "We think that some criminals must be made to pay for their crimes with their lives, and we think that we, the survivors of the world they violated, may legitimately extract that payment because we, too, are their victims" (Bedau 317). Even though the retentionists pose some interesting arguments, I myself feel that the abolitionist perspective contains much stronger backing and more reasons for opposition, the first of which is that the death penalty is wrong morally because it is the cruel and inhumane taking of a human life. Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to crime.

Isaac Ehrlich's study on the deterrent effect of capital punishment in America reveals this. The death penalty is irrevocable. Justice can miscarry. The belief that execution costs less than imprisonment is false.

Abolitionists believe that the offender should be required to compensate the victim's family with the offender's own income from employment or community service. Abolitionists consider the death penalty an insufficient form of punishment because it is cruel and inhumane, there is no proof that it deters violent crime, it can be inflicted upon people innocent of any crime, the costly process of appealing gives the death penalty a hefty price tag and with the death penalty, the chance to make restitution to the victim and / or the victim's family does not exist. The essence of the abolitionist perspective is this: The death penalty has been a gross failure. Beyond its horror and incivility, it has neither protected the innocent nor deterred the wicked. The recurrent spectacle of publicly sanctioned killing has cheapened human life and dignity without the redeeming grace which comes from justice meted out swiftly, evenly, humanely" (Draper 44). Works Cited Amnesty International Report.

The Death Penalty. England: Amnesty International Publications, 1979. Bedau, Hugo Adam. The Death Penalty in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. "Capital Punishment".

Encyclopedia Americana. 1990 ed. Draper, Thomas. Capital Punishment. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1985.

Horwitz, Elinor Lander. Capital Punishment U.S.A. New York: J.B. Lippincott, 1973. Jayewardene, C.H.S. The Penalty of Death. Massachusetts: Lexington, 1977. Meador, Roy. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1975.

"Violent Crime Control And Law Enforcement Act of 1994". 3/8/95 (date retrieved). Note: Type, double-spaced, all papers on a computer. Make sure you have one-inch margins all the way around the paper. This sounds easy; however, if you use the computer labs, you will have to double check the margins because some students need to set their margins differently; besides, some of the computers are defaulted at 1.25 inches left and right. Make sure you place a Header 1/2 inch from the top of the paper in the top-right hand corner of every page.

The header consists of your last name and the page number. Place a heading one-inch from the top of the paper in the top-left corner of the first page only. The heading consists of your name, my name, the assignment name, and the date. It looks like this: Your name J. Erath Personal Essay 17 Aug. 2000 about AI For the majority of the world's population 1999 brought repression, poverty or war. In country after country, imprisonment, torture and political killings were used by governments to silence opposition and maintain their hold on power.

In some countries the widening gap between rich and poor fuelled protests by the desperate and dispossessed which were met with brutality and violence. In other countries, political instability degenerated into open armed conflict in which countless men, women and children were maimed or slaughtered. The millions of people fleeing in search of safety bore witness to the extent of persecution and violence around the world. Yet in country after country, individual human rights activists refused to be daunted by the scale of the problems or the personal risks they faced. They organized protests, they mobilized to increase pressure for change and they took action to defend the victims of violations. They continued to draw new people into the growing network of human rights defenders, building a Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. U.S. Department of Justice Fact Sheet The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 represents the bipartisan product of six years of hard work.

It is the largest crime bill in the history of the country and will provide for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and $6.1 billion in funding for prevention programs which were designed with significant input from experienced police officers. The Act also significantly expands the government's ability to deal with problems caused by criminal aliens. The Crime Bill provides $2.6 billion in additional funding for the FBI, DEA, INS, United States Attorneys, and other Justice Department components, as well as the Federal courts and the Treasury Department. Some of the most significant provisions of the bill are summarized below: Substantive Criminal Provisions Assault Weapons Bans the manufacture of 19 military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, "copy-cat" models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than ten rounds.

Death Penalty Expands the Federal death penalty to cover about 60 offenses, including terrorist homicides, murder of a Federal law enforcement officer, large-scale drug trafficking, drive-by-shootings resulting in death and carjackings resulting in death.