Capital Punishment Essay, Research Paper

Capital punishment-the death sentence-has a long and controversial

history. Throughout centuries, countries have been using capital punishment as

a way of dealing with criminals whose crimes were so outrageous, only death was

a way of proving justice was served. Due to the fact that the death penalty can

and has been inflicted on innocent people, evidence that the death penalty is

not an effective deterrent, and that capital punishment is discriminative proves

to me that there are changes that must be made in our legal system. I do

believe capital punishment is necessary but we must take certain precautions

prier to executions.

Just a few days ago was watching 60 Minutes and there was a man on death

row since 1982. He was found innocent this year through the use of DNA and

forensic science. I’m convinced that there are more people on death row that

are innocent and there are also many were put death who were innocent-this is

the huge problem our justice system must handle. It seems like our law-

enforcement personnel want to solve the crime as soon as possible so they can

look good in front of American public. With our forensic science getting better

we should be able to determine if a person is hundred 10 percent guilty or not.

If so, then I fill those people should be put death.

Since the birth of this country in 1776, we have been using capital

punishment- but does it work as a deterrent? Statistics show it does not scare

criminals so what is the point of it if it is not an effective deterrent. I

don’t know if these statistics are correct but I know that in other countries

like Saudi Arabia, the thought of having your hand cut off if convicted of

stealing does work as a deterrent. I believe that in some cases of murder,

ignorance of the law is a factor because not many criminals know the specific

crimes, which can lead to execution.

I took a criminal justice class last year and I remember hearing that

decisions in which we execute are fairly discriminative. The records and that

the majority of people we actually execute are nonwhite. If this is the case,

it’s very wrong because it is prejudice as well as being unconstitutional. He

may possibly relate this to their economic status. It’s not right that more

money you have the greater possibility it is that you will not be executed and

many cases actually found guilty.

I know for a fact that if my parents were brutally murdered, I would like

to see the people responsible for their deaths dead. I believe that if somebody

is sick enough to murder innocent people than they have something very wrong

with her mind and is a menace to society. When we placed criminals in jail we

attempt to rehabilitate them in attempt that they could function in society just

like any other normal person. But in some cases there is no hope for people, as

in the case with most child molesters and rapist. In many cases, we should not

release the repeated offenders because the likelihood of them committing the

same tasks is very high. So we know we can’t release them into the public and

that they are guilty, why spend money on them when they have no sorrow for the

crimes that were committed.

In summary, I have stated my reasons for believing there are some faults

in our criminal justice system and especially our capital punishment system but

still managed to keep my focus on pro death penalty. Furthermore I don’t know

how we’re able to fill in these gaps in our system since the same problems have

been around during the first civilizations. To avoid convicting innocent

people, we have better sciences and DNA technology to prevent such cases. To

use capital punishment as deterrent, we should enforce in America that such

crimes will not be tolerated and make it a clear fact that if you commit these

certain crimes, you will be executed. In the issue of discriminative decisions,

I fill there is no concrete solution to this problem. I do not know too much

about this subject so it is hard to find a solution for this issue. I feel that

only time can tell the direction that this nation will stand on this

controversial topic of capital punishment. Hopefully, our technology will be

able to guarantee that the men and women we sentence to death row will surely

deserve what was dealt to them.