The Death Penalty: A Punishment to Be Abolished Death penalty or Capital punishment has been a controversial issue for centuries. According to Duhaime legal dictionary, it is the sentence of death imposed on a convicted criminal (duhaime.org). But why does the law in certain countries enforce the killing of murderers to show that killing people is wrong? Supporters of death penalty think that it is essential to execute people for committing crimes in order to achieve justice and to lower crime rates ; however , opponents of this claim believe that death penalty in a developed society is morally and reasonably unacceptable. For supporters of anti death penalty, the idea that capital punishment stops criminals from committing
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….Righteous anger, retribution, and license to do as they please, without regard to rules or consequences…(Hanks,1997)
In addition to this, other psychological factors that prevent punishment of any kind from deterring crime are these: Belief that violence is normal, drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal tendencies, mental illness and other unknown disabling conditions. With all this in mind, if people are so angry and they will to kill, it seems unlikely that they will be able to think of death penalty to deter them from murder. They will not be able to think twice before killing to avoid being executed. It is claimed by advocators of death penalty that the fear from being executed will prevent murderers from committing crimes; as a result, the number of crimes will decrease. (as cited in Phillips,1980),in 1975, Issac Ehrlich published a study in which he concluded that “ an additional execution per year…may have resulted in …seven or eight fewer murders. His work seemed to show statistically that death penalty did indeed deter further murders. However, his study was discredited by statisticians Peter Passell and John Taylor who found that Elrich’s findings were only true when one included the period 1962-1969, a time when few executions were carried out in an age of great social conflicts. They maintained that if the study was conducted only on the period 1933-1961, …show more content…
He presented the first compelling statistical evidence that capital punishment did deter homicides for a short time after a well-publicized execution (Phillips,1980). However, after reexamining Philips’s data, William J. Bower found that the immediate deterrent effect Philips had found was illusionary because weeks later not only did murders continue, but also the executions appeared to contribute to more murders and led to more violence(Hanks,1997). Earlier to this time, the same observation had also been made by one of the first influential modern opponents to capital punishment Cesare Beccaria, an Italian Criminologist, who in 1764 published Essay on Crimes and Punishments. He argued that capital punishment had a brutalizing effect on society and that death penalty might actually encourage violence rather than prevent it(Yorke, 2010).This notion can be further supported when examining certain statistical data which show that this is true until today. For example, (as cited in deathpenalty.org)states in the United States without the death penalty have much lower murder rates than in the states where death penalty is not abolished, and that 80% of executions have been carried out in the South, yet it still has the highest regional murder rate. Internationally comparing, along with 110 nations that have banned capital punishment,
….Righteous anger, retribution, and license to do as they please, without regard to rules or consequences…(Hanks,1997)
In addition to this, other psychological factors that prevent punishment of any kind from deterring crime are these: Belief that violence is normal, drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal tendencies, mental illness and other unknown disabling conditions. With all this in mind, if people are so angry and they will to kill, it seems unlikely that they will be able to think of death penalty to deter them from murder. They will not be able to think twice before killing to avoid being executed. It is claimed by advocators of death penalty that the fear from being executed will prevent murderers from committing crimes; as a result, the number of crimes will decrease. (as cited in Phillips,1980),in 1975, Issac Ehrlich published a study in which he concluded that “ an additional execution per year…may have resulted in …seven or eight fewer murders. His work seemed to show statistically that death penalty did indeed deter further murders. However, his study was discredited by statisticians Peter Passell and John Taylor who found that Elrich’s findings were only true when one included the period 1962-1969, a time when few executions were carried out in an age of great social conflicts. They maintained that if the study was conducted only on the period 1933-1961, …show more content…
He presented the first compelling statistical evidence that capital punishment did deter homicides for a short time after a well-publicized execution (Phillips,1980). However, after reexamining Philips’s data, William J. Bower found that the immediate deterrent effect Philips had found was illusionary because weeks later not only did murders continue, but also the executions appeared to contribute to more murders and led to more violence(Hanks,1997). Earlier to this time, the same observation had also been made by one of the first influential modern opponents to capital punishment Cesare Beccaria, an Italian Criminologist, who in 1764 published Essay on Crimes and Punishments. He argued that capital punishment had a brutalizing effect on society and that death penalty might actually encourage violence rather than prevent it(Yorke, 2010).This notion can be further supported when examining certain statistical data which show that this is true until today. For example, (as cited in deathpenalty.org)states in the United States without the death penalty have much lower murder rates than in the states where death penalty is not abolished, and that 80% of executions have been carried out in the South, yet it still has the highest regional murder rate. Internationally comparing, along with 110 nations that have banned capital punishment,