...drug laws and strict repeat offenders putting more people behind bars. Incarceration, however, is not the main objective of prisons; they also serve two important purposes, punishment and rehabilitation. Prisons have been designed and operated for years with these two objectives in mind; sometimes the punishment and the rehabilitation are separate from one another, most of the time they go hand in hand, the punishment for the crime and the rehabilitation to return to society. Punishment is the infliction of a penalty as retribution for an offense. There are several ways our correctional system punishes offenders today, ranging from confinement to capital punishment, confinement being the most predominant. This includes: tight living quarters, sometimes solitary confinement, strict house rules and minimal contact with the outside world, all of which can be draining on an inmate’s morale. The death penalty is the harshest punishment the court system can impose. It has come in many forms since its birth and has become very controversial in recent years. Though now called capital punishment, the death penalty was first recognized in the 18th century B.C., and in the 10th century A.D. hanging became the usual method of execution in areas like Britain. (History of death penalty laws, 2013) Capital punishment today is much more civilized, in 2003 Governor George Ryan ordered a moratorium on executions after evidence proved 13 inmates on death row were wrongly...
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...castrated. I would want him to remember what happened to the little child and how wrong he was. Lethal Injection Lethal injection is an easy way out but Mr. Cuomo states “True life imprisonment is a more effective deterrent than capital punishment.” (Cuomo, 2011) I do not agree with this; life in prison means they get to eat three hot meals, get exercise, watch cable television, sleep in a bed, have internet access and take showers all on the tax payer’s dime. It is so much scarier to me that I would get the death penalty and cease to be on this earth than to have life in prison. They have more than an elderly person in a nursing facility. Even in the bible it says to give these people the death punishment. “In Genesis 9:6, God told Noah that the penalty for intentional murder should be death: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” [ (Mohler, 2014) ]. This is something that I feel very strongly about and is something I believe to be true. “In the simplest form, the Bible condemns murder and calls for the death of the murderer. The one who intentionally takes life by murder forfeits the right to his own life.” [ (Mohler, 2014) ] Then he pulls the race card “capital punishment appears to threaten white drug dealers, white rapists and white killers less frequently than those of other races” (Cuomo, 2011). Pulling the race card on everything means you have no grounds to make your argument. Yes there are some...
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...DEATH PENALTY IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT PHI 103: INFORMAL LOGIC JUNE 2, 2012 THE DEATH PENALTY IS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT In the United States there are currently 33 states that have the death penalty as a form of punishment. The legal system in the U.S. is imperfect resulting in many innocent people’s convictions of death. There have been several exonerations of innocent people on death row. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, “From 1973-1999 there was an average of 3 exonerations per year. From 2000-2011, there has been an average of 5 exonerations per year” (Death Penalty Information Organization, pg 2 para 3). Because of the imperfections of the legal system there are thousands of people as well as politicians that believe the death penalty should be abolished in the the United States, I am one of the people that are against the death penalty but for more reasons other than just the imperfections of the legal system. The other reasons the death penalty should be abolished are more based on the ethical issues, people’s rights to life, and the economic issues associated with the death penalty. Because of all the exonerations in the past three or four decades this form of justice should be abolished, it is not applies fairly and just and it makes me wonder how many people were actually put to death that were innocent. Fact is that in the 33 states that use the death penalty as a form of punishment do not all use the same guidelines...
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...CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: SHOULD IT BE ABOLISHED? Capital Punishment: Meaning Punishment can be defined as suffering, loss, pain or penalty inflicted upon an individual by a legal authority, as a consequence of certain acts of commission and omission. Punishment has two aspects. First is ‘utilitarian’ in which punishment is used as a tool for increasing happiness of the society by pointing out to the criminal the wrongfulness of his crime as well presenting the punishment as a deterrent to both the criminal and the society for not repeating the crime. Second aspect is ‘retributive’ which serves as a consolation to the aggrieved or his kin that the criminal has been adequately punished. Capital punishment is the ultimate punishment in which life of a criminal is taken away by a legal authority under a process established by the law. International Scenario Although, UN “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” does not say anything explicitly about death penalty, Article 5 of the said declaration prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Activists have been arguing that death penalty is cruel and inhuman and hence covered under this article. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989, provides for the total abolition of the death penalty except in times of war or imminent threat of war. Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human...
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...Introduction Capital punishment in the United States is largely viewed as retaliation and compensation against society's most malicious criminals. The federal government rarely imposes capital punishment for crimes. The majority of capital sanctions are imposed on the state level for murder. Currently, thirty-two states have death penalty statutes. Of those thirty-two, only seven states carried out executions in 2014 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2015). Those executions total 35 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2015). As a result of the low number of executions carried out, experts in the United States have examined the efficiency of the death penalty. To accurately assess the economic costs of the death penalty, the difference between the costs...
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...eliminate the death penalty as form of capital punishment. Introduction (Attention Getter) After committing a capital crime which is defined as a crime such as first-degree murder or rape of a child, a large percentage of people are sentenced to capital punishment. The end result is absolute death! But what if you were actually innocent of the crime? This unsettling tombstone could be on the grave as a result of the death penalty! (Thesis Statement) There has been a nationwide decline in capital punishment, but unfortunately potentially innocent people are still often executed. (Preview of the main points) This afternoon, I will first share with you some of the injustices that are occurring in the American legal system. Then I will explore with you reasons why we should consider adopting life without the parole as the only form of punishment for capital crimes. Body The death penalty has more victims than just the person who was convicted of the crime. A. Wrongly convicted people are often exonerate, but more than not executed. 1. The 100-plus innocent people exonerated from death row represent further proof that the death penalty should be abolished. Issues & Controversies On File (2009) 2. A prime example is the details related to the posthumous exoneration of Timothy Cole which was proven through DNA testing. Wiseman (2010) B. The death penalty is immoral and unfair. 1. Some argue that capital punishment denies people their most basic right:...
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...especially in the United States. The death penalty or the capital punishment is a sentence imposed by the law, which remove the legal life of the person who commit or is suspected of having committed a serious crime. The history of death penalty in the U.S is long and ruthless and the first recorded execution was in 1608. There are many kinds of death penalty which have been used in US such as shooting, electric chair, hanging, lethal injection. Some people believe that it is never ethical and justifiable to carry out the death penalty as means of punishment by the law. Nowadays, approximately 2/3 of all countries have banned the death penalty included 18 states of the United States. Most executions take place in the Southern states, according to this source, until 2008, 930 out of 1136 executions took place there, with Texas having carried out 422 (The pros and cons of the death penalty in the USA, n.d). This research will indicate whether the death penalty in the U.S should be abolished. Body Paragraph Reasons for the abolishment of Capital Punishment in the U.S It is possible to argue that the death penalty in the U.S should be eliminated because of inviolable human rights, unjust punishment and faint correlation between executions and crime rates. Firstly, inalienable human-rights are against the death penalty in all over the world because no one can decide who could be alive. Against Capital Punishment (n.d) argues that “everyone has a right to live and no one...
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...Capital Punishment What is Capital Punishment? Capital Punishment which is also known as the Death Penalty. Death Penalty is the infliction of the death penalty as punishment for certain crimes according toDictionary.com. In the following essay will show why Capital Punishment is implemented to our society. Capital Punishment in any form is acceptable according to the following to the following articles will help justify this concept. To some people Capital Punishment would be considered an act of cruel and unusual punishment; while for others it is a system that should be considered needed in all the States in order to keep the country more safe for the people. Many states within the U.S. have performed executions of convicts since the early 1600’s. Views on capital Punishment vary with people in different ways; there are various organizations within the country that have different opinions on the subject, and organizations such as Religions, Political, or Humanitarian have diverse perspectives on the Death Penalty. “The death penalty is also most commonly argued to be a violation of the right to life or of the "sanctity of life." Many national constitutions and international treaties guarantee the right to life. the right to life demands that a life only be taken in exceptional circumstances, such as in self-defense or as an act of war, and therefore that it violates the right to life of a criminal if she or he is executed, since this is purely murder by the State” according...
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...Lethal Justice?: Is Capital Punishment right or wrong Capital punishment and the practice of the death penalty is an issue that is passionately debated in the United States. Opponents of capital punishment often view the sentence to be cruel because it is ethically unjust. For example, ethical problems involve the moral issues in addition to whether it is ever right to execute another human. On the other hand, pro death penalty supporters regularly claim that the punishment is just because it may provide closure to the victims loved ones and it is the direct answer to a murder. Additionally, it is argued that as a result of the injection the supposed criminal may never commit further crimes. Both sides of the issue have strong claims to support...
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...assessment we will also attempt to evaluate and identify recent and future trends and contemporary issues that affect our criminal justice system and try to determine the value of the criminal justice system in a changing society (University of Phoenix Student website, 2010). Many have viewed the criminal justice system as simply presenting a harsh existence. Some have viewed it as being too lax. There are many individuals that could agree that at one point or another, the criminal justice system has been judged to be too much on side or the other. Criminal justice has had trends that have taken place over centuries. A major issue within the criminal justice to which there have been many trends has been the issue of capital punishment. Capital punishment has existed for centuries. Beheading was something that goes back a very long way in...
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...the other completes his college education while still in prison and teaches other convicts English. He also volunteers for medical experiments, allowing himself to be injected with malaria germs in order to test new drugs. A model prisoner, he causes no trouble throughout his entire prison term. After about 30 years, he is paroled, whereupon he goes to a different country and continues to teach English. Two years later he dies of natural causes. Should this man have been subjected to capital punishment? Why or why not Theories that will be applied: 1. Divine Command Theory 2. Virtue Ethics 3. Utilitarianism Capital punishment has been and will always be a widely debated topic. The biggest question that surrounds capital punishment would be is it morally right or is it morally wrong? There are many arguments for and against capital punishment. Is a capital punishment really a deterent as some would say? I will apply and test three theories to the case mentioned above to see if capital punishment is the most appropriate solution or not. First I will examine the divine command theory and see how it applies to the case mentioned above. In all fairness I must say that in the case mentioned above the divine command theory is strongly contradicting itself. How is that possible? Well let us start by saying that the divine command theory uses Gods...
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...California Does Not Need Capital Punishment Capital punishment is the legally authorized killing of a person who has committed a heinous crime. Capital punishment has been around for centuries and is still used today in various countries including the United States. All though throughout the years capital punishment has lost its appeal and is gradually being ruled unconstitutional in the United States, the earliest being Michigan in 1846. Some of the 18 states that have already abolished capital punishment are New York, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, and Iowa. Sadly, California is not apart of the list of states that have abolished capital punishment. Capital punishment should be abolished in the state of California because too many innocent people have been executed, it cost too much money, it does not act as a deterrent to crimes, and life without parole is a more practical option than capital punishment. There are too many flaws in the capital punishment system and many of them lead to innocent people being executed. According to John W. Whitehead in his article “The Death Penalty Should be Abolished”, “In a Columbia University study on 5,760 capital cases, the report found an overall rate of error of 68 percent. In other words, courts found serious reversible errors in nearly 7 out of 10 capital cases.”(1). If one innocent person was executed that would be one to many, but the fact that there is an error rate of 68 percent is unacceptable. The most infuriating thing however...
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...Benchmark Assignment The Death Penalty Picot pg. 1 Keith e picot 3/28/2012 Criminal Procedure Benchmark assignment Mr. Jessie Torres The Death Penalty in America An unreasonable and Inhumane Deterrent The Death penalty has been a staple in U.S. justice system since its inception in 1608, when Captain George Kendall, in the Jamestown Colony of Virginia was ‘executed by firing squad for treason’. Even though controversial this punishment has no place in America. Death Penalty is unreasonable and inhumane deterrent for crime and should be abolished. First of all. data shows a racial bias towards black crimes against white victims. In addition, it is less expensive to house inmates than to execute them. Finally many countries have abolished the Death Penalty deeming it merciless I am a person that does not believe in the death penalty. The main thing we Question is, what purpose it serves for us to put another person on death row. By killing another human being it wont bring back that victim they murder. People against this method realize capital punishment does not stop criminals from killing or stop them from their mischief act. Many states that are against this method argue that the death penalty is both cruel and unnecessary that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who done great evil. Prosecutor need to take time out to make sure that...
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...Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty from http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/ ARGUMENT 1 DETERRENCE The death penalty prevents future murders. Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life. For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies. Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty....
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...Arguments for and Against the Death Penalty from http://deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/ ARGUMENT 1 DETERRENCE The death penalty prevents future murders. Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life. For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies. Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use...
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