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Death Penalty in the Usa

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Submitted By littlekitty
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The death penalty, black point of the American democracy

Unfortunately Death penalty still exists and is applied in the U.S.A. According to Amnesty

International, 58 countries around the world have maintained the capital punishment. United States

included. Who has never heard of this controversial and polemical debate? The death penalty is

controversial due to its lack of coherence regarding to basic human rights.

First of all, it was shown that the American model has advocated democracy and self-

determination in the entire world. Consequently, the presence of death penalty in a democratic

and developed country can appear as a strange contradiction. How this singularity can

be perceived and explained ? As the sociologist Arnaud Gaillard explains in the newspaper

“Le Monde”, several hypotheses are possible. Firstly, the violent environment shown by the

legalization of guns or the important criminality would agree that death penalty has been part

of the American culture for decades. Another plausible cause proposed by A.Gaillard is the

young age of the population influencing the construction of the United States by its excesses.

This argument can seem excessive since young people should be in favor of the system’s

abolition. The youth are certainly more open-minded than the past generation. It is

contradictory to Gaillard’s argument.

Then, if we look at the death penalty itself, we can notice that it is still a current

practice in the USA. It is not just present in the American constitution, it is also applied in

daily life. In fact, tree people have been killed since the beginning of 2012 which is

considerable in only 38 days. However, we can notice a decrease of the number of executions

that have occured since 2006. 53 people were killed in

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