The Detterent Essay, Research Paper

The Deterrent Something to think about: “Had the death penalty been a real possibility in the minds of …murderers, they might well have stayed their hand. They might have shown moral awareness before their victims died…Consider the tragic death of Rosa Velez, who happened to be home when a man named Luis Vera burglarized her apartment in Brooklyn. “Yeah, I shot her,” Vera admitted…And I knew I wouldn’t go to the chair.” (Lowe 3) As the above passage reads, why should we waste our time with these heartless and arrogant people? Murderers should not be allowed to walk the streets after being found guilty of such violent crimes. “To protect the innocent and transfer the fear and burden of crime to the criminal element where it belongs, we must demand that capital punishment be imposed when justified and expanded to cover terrible crimes in addition to murder” (Lee 163). Ever since executions have existed, there have been several methods of executing criminals. Firing squad, hanging, decapitation, and stoning people to death were some of the methods that had been used in the past to perform executions. The three most common forms of executions in the United States today are: electrocution, the gas chamber, and lethal injection (Mortimer 67). As of February 25, 1998, there have been nine lethal injections and one gas chamber execution this year in the United States (USA Executions). Being only a month and a half into the year, and already having ten executions, this tells us that there is a lot of crime in today’s society. Law enforcement officials are protecting our nation to the best of their ability; therefore, it is our duty to see that justice is served. Deterrence is a strategy that our justice system uses to reduce or eliminate future criminal behavior. Deterrence is similar to the concept of the Old Testament known as “an eye for an eye.” As the criminals, family members hope that rehabilitation can effect a scheduled death from taking place, retribution is what the victims family members mostly depend on. Restoration is required by the victims and their family members to feel “whole again.” The death penalty should continue to be allowed in our justice system. The death penalty is neither cruel nor unusual punishment. Polls taken in the late 1980s and 1990s have shown that 75 to 80 percent of all Americans support capital punishment (Monk 228). The death penalty is not a violation of the eighth amendment by being cruel and unusual punishment. The current means of the death penalty is accomplished by lethal injection, usually performed in a controlled environment with several witnesses present and supervised by a doctor. Considering the majority of criminals sentenced to the death penalty have murdered other humans by, mutilation, stabbing, torture, rape, and many other violent acts of murder. Then there is no way that the death penalty could be considered cruel or unusual. Due to the perpetrators lack of regard for the rights of their victims, why should it be cruel or unusual to exact retribution for their offenses? Deterrence uses punishment as an act to convince people who contemplate criminal activity that crimes will not be tolerated in society. Isaac Ehrlich, for instance, in an extensive statistical analysis of executions between the years 1933 and 1967, reached very different conclusions. He contends not only that the executions reduced the murder rate but that one additional execution per year between 1933 and 1967 would have resulted in seven or eight fewer murders per year (Monk 229). Although they are well aware of the crimes that they are committing criminals just do not anticipate being caught. Those individuals convicted of capital crimes are not good candidates for rehabilitation in our current correctional facilities. Take the case of John Wayne Gacy who was executed on May 10, 1994. Considered by many to be a model citizen, a hospital volunteer whose sweet clown face enlightened the patient’s stay, Gacy, was instead a compulsive maniac who sodomized, tortured, and killed thirty-three young men and boys (Maiken, and Sullivan). People like this are a disgrace to our society and do not deserve the right to live. After knowing the crimes this maniac has committed, is there any hope that again, one day, this “man” could be a “model citizen” again? No! Rehabilitation is supposed to make fundamental changes in an individuals behavior. With our crime level at its highest peak in years, criminals feel they have the upper hand. Humans with the capability of committing such crimes do not anticipate being caught or they believe that they will not be executed for their acts.

Rehabilitation seeks to bring about significant changes on the behavior of offenders. More commonly, drug addicts are rehabilitated over serial killers. There is sicknesses in the brain where these “humans” get a great deal of pleasure in watching their victims suffer. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has an inmate job-training program that includes counseling. This inmate right’s programs function is to teach relative job skill job placement and retention skills. Programs such as these are an intelligent source of rehabilitation for someone that will only be serving time verses life without parole. In retrospect, suppose that a wife catches her husband having an affair and murders him. She should definitely be sentenced to prison, with the possibility of parole as an option. Because, her murder was out of passion, and she is not a serial killer that enjoyed watching someone suffer to death. By no means am I suggesting that her sentence should be light, but rehabilitation could definitely be a suggestion for her. Restoration seeks to make the victim and the community “whole.” The healing of victims, family, and communities involves many aspects, ranging from victim assistance to victim compensation. Retribution is the need for vengeance. Vengeance may be the only way for justice to be served in society. Robert A. Heilien’s Starship Troopers states:”The idea that “violence doesn’t solve anything” is a historically untrue and immoral doctrine. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst People that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.” (Lowe 6). If criminals are charged with murder and then thirty years down the road released from prison, all that shows our society is that they can get away with murder. This is not the example that needs to be set for future criminals. . At 23 years old, Tanya Faye Tucker with an ice pick, brutally stabbed two people to death. Tucker was loaded on drugs when her violent crimes were committed. Claiming to have found Christianity in prison, this assisted in making her a model prisoner. Christianity and the death penalty Have a very forceful argument. The 5th commandment is Exodus 20:13 states: “Thou shall not kill” but if one translated directly from the original Hebrew version, it is: “Thou shall not murder.” The Christian belief is that “Jesus died on the cross for our sins,” therefore Jesus died for murders, so why execute them. This debate will never have a solution due to societies different beliefs (Lowe 10). The “Christian belief” is clearly stated in Romans 5:8, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we we’re yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Unfortunately, Tucker still had to pay the price for the brutal murders that she had committed several years prior. On February 3, 1998, Tucker was executed by lethal injection (Pedersen 66-67, Verhovek A1). In closing, imagine leaving the mall after a hard days work when a man sticks a gun in your back. “Get in,” says a sharp and horrifying voice. Driven only 3 miles away, you are repeatedly stabbed, raped, and slowly tortured until you take your last gasping breath. This statement should prove how the death penalty needs to continue in the United States of America. There will always be an exception per individual, but speaking on behalf of the supporting facts in this essay, “People who commit such heinous crimes need to lay in the bed they made for themselves.” It will never be pleasant to watch someone die or be put to rest, but the reality of today’s society is that there will always be a victim of a violent crime such as murder, therefore the death penalty must always be supported by the citizens of our nation.