Introduction
Entitled “The changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates,” by Radelet and Borg (2000) is the article that I chose for this literature review paper. In their article Radelet and Borg explore how the death penalty, also known as capital punishment, has been a topic for much debate within the US Supreme court, professional circles, and layperson over the past twenty-five years. The goal of their paper is “to review recent social science research that has examined various dimensions of capital punishment (Radelet & Borg, 2000, p. 1).” Radelet and Borg explore how arguments and support for the death penalty have peaked in later years and have begun to gradually decline as the result of the social research of our day. This pattern of …show more content…
This argument states that justice for heinous crimes requires the death penalty and life without parole is simply not enough. This “need” and “deserving” attitude for retribution is often seen in the family of homicide victims. The most challenging part about this argument is the inability and impossibility to collect any time of supportive data. Yet, opposing such retribution is criminologist Marvin Wolfgang (1996) who states that we should not be asking the question “who deserves to die?” but “who deserves to kill (Radelet & Borg, …show more content…
The discussion organized into six different issues; deterrence, incapacitation, caprice and bias, cost, innocence, and retribution, portrays thoughts and research that has both opposed and supported capital punishment in the last twenty-five years. In turn, the three-major observations that were derived from this discussion include first, significant changes death penalty debates throughout the years, second, an accelerated worldwide decline in the acceptance of capital punishment, and lastly, sending a positive message of encouragement to criminologists who feel their research doesn’t do much to persuade both public and policy makers (Radelet & Borg, 2000). Just how this review suggests, I believe that as individuals become more informed about the current research done on the effects of capital punishment we will see a major decline on pro capital punishment social norms on a worldwide
Entitled “The changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates,” by Radelet and Borg (2000) is the article that I chose for this literature review paper. In their article Radelet and Borg explore how the death penalty, also known as capital punishment, has been a topic for much debate within the US Supreme court, professional circles, and layperson over the past twenty-five years. The goal of their paper is “to review recent social science research that has examined various dimensions of capital punishment (Radelet & Borg, 2000, p. 1).” Radelet and Borg explore how arguments and support for the death penalty have peaked in later years and have begun to gradually decline as the result of the social research of our day. This pattern of …show more content…
This argument states that justice for heinous crimes requires the death penalty and life without parole is simply not enough. This “need” and “deserving” attitude for retribution is often seen in the family of homicide victims. The most challenging part about this argument is the inability and impossibility to collect any time of supportive data. Yet, opposing such retribution is criminologist Marvin Wolfgang (1996) who states that we should not be asking the question “who deserves to die?” but “who deserves to kill (Radelet & Borg, …show more content…
The discussion organized into six different issues; deterrence, incapacitation, caprice and bias, cost, innocence, and retribution, portrays thoughts and research that has both opposed and supported capital punishment in the last twenty-five years. In turn, the three-major observations that were derived from this discussion include first, significant changes death penalty debates throughout the years, second, an accelerated worldwide decline in the acceptance of capital punishment, and lastly, sending a positive message of encouragement to criminologists who feel their research doesn’t do much to persuade both public and policy makers (Radelet & Borg, 2000). Just how this review suggests, I believe that as individuals become more informed about the current research done on the effects of capital punishment we will see a major decline on pro capital punishment social norms on a worldwide