BreAnna Montoya
July 22, 2014
Mrs. Kamri Goff
Major Writing
Assignment #2
With the topic of Capital
Punishment, the topic is very controversial among everyone. Some people are
okay with it at all times, some people are against it at all costs and other
are okay with it depending on the crime. There was an article from September
2011which follows the execution of a man in Georgia. The article states that a
lot of people who were on death row, are being exonerated due to advances in
technology and evidence. Most people think the death penalty should be
abolished. The article references the ALCU which thinks the death penalty has
no place in a civilized country. The article is not saying that opposing the
death penalty doesn’t mean that you would deny convicted murders of punishment,
it means people think there could be something else that they could do. Based
on this article, one could determine the people who were interviewed for this
article are opposed to the death penalty.
When
people are talking about the opposite side of the forum from opposition to
support, the support has increased for capital punishment in the past few
years. There is also the issue of the mentally ill and whether or not people
support the death penalty for the mentally ill. The death penalty support has increased since 1966, which
was when supporters were outnumbered by opponents. In the 1990’s the support
was at a record high. Research has determined that most people’s attitudes
towards the death penalty are based on emotion rather than information or
rational argument. Death penalty support has risen for most of the major
felonies. No matter what someone’s stance may be, most still oppose the death
penalty for the mentally retarded.
There is more than just opposing and
supporting the death penalty. Some will say it depends on your race as to
whether or not you are sentenced to death. There has been little research to
investigate this difference. There is data from the 1990 General society survey
that states whites supported the punishment as its associated with prejudice
against blacks. People are always going to pull the race card when it comes to anything
but especially capital punishment.
Sometimes
people think the death penalty saves lives, which can be true in the event of
serial killers, however sometimes that is not always the case. There has been
some recent interest, at this time in 2006, as there were lots of papers
written during that time and currently. The article assesses the time series
evidence, comparing the homicides and executions in the US and Canada and
within the US between executing and non-executing states. It analyzes the
judicial experiments, and the execution and homicide rates since 1934.
Sometimes
people are not smart enough to think about the consequences of committing their
crimes. People will argue that those who commit the crime, are not thinking
about the consequences and therefore should not be punished to death. Decades
of research shows that criminal behavior responds to incentives, non-economists
think that humans are not rational enough to make decisions about benefits
engaging in crime. Research should not be driven by personal beliefs. It states
that Mocan and Gittings provide evidence that people react to incentives
induced by capital punishment. Research found that the deterrent effect of the
death penalty show strong feelings which could be due to political,
ideological, religious or personal beliefs. The article also states do not mean
that capital punishment is good or bad.
There
are people out there who talk about the legitimacy of the death penalty, which
is a very old argument, it could even be as old as the death penalty. The
philosophical and moral arguments, whether they be for or against it, have
remain unchanged since the beginning of the debate. There is one issue that has
been outstanding is the subject of increased investigation; due to the
objective nature and dominant role it has played in shaping the cases against
the death penalty.
The
history of the death penalty goes as far back as 18th century BC. The
Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon codified the death penalty for 25 different
crimes, although murder was not one of them. The first death was recorded in 16th
century BC Egypt where someone was accused of magic and ordered to take his own
life. The first recorded execution in English American colonies was 1608 when
George Kendall of Virginia was killed for supposedly plotting to betray the
British to the Spanish.
There
are multiple ways that people used to be executed when the death penalty first
became a sentence in 18th Century BC. The rulers decided how people
would be executed like, boiling them in oil, throwing them in snake pits,
dragging them under boats, flaying them, poisoning them, burying them alive,
drawing and quartering them, etc. The way people are currently executed for the
death penalty is less gruesome, the most common is lethal injection. Very few
use the gas chamber and the electric chair anymore.
There
are pros and cons to every subject out there. The people who are against the
death penalty think the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. .
They think its premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being. 13,000
people have been executed since colonial times. The 1930’s, The Depression Era,
saw a historic peak in executions.
There
are a lot of different opinions when it comes to the death penalty. Its hard to
think of what every single person will think of the death penalty as each
person is either for or against the death penalty and they have their own
reasons. Someone could be against it because they had a crime committed against
them and the crime that was committed against that person could mean the
punishment of the death penalty. Then there is the person who had a family
member sentenced to death for the crimes they may have committed and they feel
like it is wrong to put someone to death for a crime.
Works Cited
Cohn, S. E., & Barkan, S. F. (1994). Racial
Prejudice and Support for the Death Penalty by Whites. Journal of Research
in Crime and Delinquency, 202-209.
Davis, N. (2011). Viewpoint: Death penalty should
be abolished. Retrieved from WSU Signpost:
www.wsusignpost.com/2011/09/22/viewpoint-12-5699#.U7tI8JUg_IU
Donohue, J., & Wolfers, J. J. (2006). The Death
Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence. The Economists Voice.
Ehrlich, I. (1975, June). The Deterrent Effect of
Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death. American Economic Review.
Head, T. (n.d.). Types of Executions.
Retrieved from civilliberty.about.com:
civilliberty.about.com/od/capitalpunishment/ig/Types-of-Executions
Mocan, N., & Gittings, K. (2010). The Impact of
Incentives on Human Behavior: Can we make it disappear? The Case of the death
penalty. The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America,
379-418.
P.C. Ellsworth, S. G. (1994). Hardening of Attitudes:
Americans' Views on the Death Penalty. Journal of Social Issues, 19-52.
Reggio, M. H. (1995-2014). Racial Prejudice and
Support for the Death Penalty by Whites. Retrieved from PBS:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/execution/readings/history.html
White, D. (n.d.). Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty.
Retrieved from usliberals.about.com:
usliberals.about.com/od/deathpenalty/i/DeathPenalty.htm
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