Capital Punishment 5 Essay, Research Paper

Capital Punishment

This is an argumentative essay on capital punishment. I will give you two sides. There are two parties who argue over its many points, including 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. For the retentionist, 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. They have many arguments on why to keep the death penalty, or why to use the death penalty. For the abolitionists, their goal is to abolish all capital punishment.

One argument is the deterrence of crime. Defenders of the death penalty insist that since taking an offender’s life is more severe punishment than any prison term, it must be a deterrent. They feel that it will make criminals think twice about committing a crime. On the other hand abolitionist argue that adjacent states, in which one has the death penalty and the other does not, show no long term differences in the number of murders that occur in that state. States that use the death penalty seem to have a larger number of homicides than that of states that don’t use the death penalty. States that have abolished and than reinstated the death penalty have not showed any significant changes in crime. Abolitionists also believe the capital punishment is barbaric. Some people say it is barbaric to take someone’s life through electric chairs, or gas chambers. Retentionists argue that they now have lethal injection where the person doesn’t feel any pain.

A strong argument that the retentionists also have is the bible. The bible called for a penalty of death for more than thirty different crimes. The bible (Genesis (9:6) say, “Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood be shed.” This is a class argument if favor of the death penalty. Another quote is “Let the punishment fit the crime”. Both say that the murderer deserves to die. 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. They say some can do more alive than dead. By working the criminal pays back society and also the victim and/or the victims family.

Abolitionists believe that capital punishment is subject to miscarriage of justice and it would be impossible to administer it fairly. They state that innocent people are killed even though they did not commit the crime. The survey found between 1900 and 1985 they found that 7000 people were executed and 35 were innocent of capital crimes. The argument against Innocent people being killed. Are that many innocent people getting killed during their jobs, but that doesn’t mean that those jobs are abolished. They also state that execution cost more that imprisonment. The death of each prisoner is approximately $3.5million a prisoner while it is $535,000 for an average of 40 years of a prisoner sentenced to life.

Defenders of the death penalty say that nothing found in the laws of capital punishment causes

Sexist, racist, or class bias, these are not reasons to abolish the death sentence. While abolitionists argue that capital punishment has been used unfairly in three major ways: females are rarely sentenced to death and executed, even though 20% of all murders that have occurred in recent years were committed by women. 55.5% of those on death row are black. Before the 70’s, when the death penalty was for rape was still used in may states, no white men where convicted of raping nonwhites. Third, poor and friendless defendants are most likely to be sentenced to death. This data shows how it can discriminate.

I’ve given you many different arguments of both sides of the subject. I am one who favors the death penalty. This isn’t an essay to persuade though; it is an essay giving an argument on both sides of the matter, so you can have enough information to decide your own opinion on capital punishment.