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The death penalty for years has served as a castigation for the evil-minded individuals who unlawfully take the life of another human being. Putting to death people judged to have committed certain extremely heinous crimes is a practice of ancient standing throughout the world. Disagreements about the death penalty usually turn on issues of fairness, morality, and effectiveness. The death penalty is a non-costly, deterrent to crime. Although capital punishment has been inflicted in a relatively small number of cases for comparatively small time period, there subsequently has been an immediate decrease in murder. A study from Oregon State University shows the statistics proving that these cases did decrease the rate of murders (Ortman, 7).
Those who argue against capital punishment should bear in mind that where capital punishment has actually been inflicted, this has been the result. But, according to Mark Costanzo, Ph. D. , Capital punishment has never been given a fair trial throughout this country over a sufficient period of time and in a sufficient number of cases to justify the assumption that it is not a deterrent of murder (Costanzo, 147). It has been proven a deterrent of murder according to the statistics published by Costanzo, which stated that the average murder rate in states with the death penalty was 8. 64 for every 100, 000 people and in states without the death penalty, the rate was 5. 35 (99).
The cost of the death penalty is another issue that needs addressing. Many people seem to think that by killing a person the public is saving money. However, in reality, a prisoner on death row is more expensive when holding them in prison without the possibility of parole. According to Richard Dieters article, capital cases cost at least $ 2. 6 million more per execution in some states. The expense comes from the long drawn out appeals process that we are giving our criminals, and the court appointed attorneys that the poor are receiving. Although a purely economic analysis might be considered vulgar or irrelevant to discussion of a life-or-death issue, assertions about financial cost often come forth in debates about the value of the death penalty.
The cost of just operating a maximum-security cell is $ 5, 000 per year and the cost of maintaining a maximum-security prisoner is around $ 20, 000 per year. Taking into account the average age of incarceration for someone convicted of homicide (30. 8 years) and the average life expectancy for males in U. S. prisons, Raymond Paternoster has estimated that the total cost ranges from $ 750, 000 to $ 1. 1 million per prisoner (Costanzo, 65). It seems that for the security of our nation, this is more cost effective solution.
Death is the only acceptable form of punishment for some types of crimes. The punishment of death has never prevented determined men from injuring society. (Ortman, 2) A government that persists in retaining these horrible punishments can only assign one reason in justification of their conduct. They have already degraded and brutalized the habits of the people, that they cannot be restrained by any moderate punishments. The punishment of death is damaging to society, from the example of barbarity it affords.
If the passion or the necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their fellow creatures, the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase by examples of barbarity, the more horrible, as this punishment is usually attended with formal pageantry (Bender, 27). The death penalty would insure that those who suffer the death penalty are the worst of the worst - mass murderers, hired killers, airplane bombers, for example. On the other hand, those who show no mercy should find none. It is apparent that torments so unusual and unknown to us may at first surprise the average person, and appear reasonable; but one would hope it easy to get over that difficulty, and make it appear upon examination, that that will be the more probable way to secure the citizens from their fears of them. In summary, there is considerable evidence that Americans will save money when the death penalty is abolished.
Streamlining the legal system might reduce costs, but the moral consequences of streamlining (for example, violation of constitutional rights, a rise in wrongful convictions) are unacceptably high. Opponents of capital punishment maintain that it is too expensive to impose the death penalty and much cheaper to imprison a criminal for life. The death penalty can be economically effective by increasing the cost of imposing the death penalty and reducing the rate of executions to a trickle. Here we are left in an irregular limbo due to the invention of this extremely expensive machine that chokes the legal institutions, visits repeated trauma on victims families, and ultimately produces nothing like the benefits we would expect from an effective system of capital punishment. This is surely the worst of all worlds. The only way to make the death penalty cost effective is to determine the victim of this machine by the barbarity of the crime, which is going to call for some serious soul searching for the nature of human evil.
First, it would mean that in a world of limited resources and in the face of a determined opposition, people would sentence to death only those intended to be executed. This must be better than loading our death rows with many more than we can possibly execute, and then picking those who will die essentially at random. Secondly, a political solution would put the process of accommodating differing viewpoints back into the political arena, where it belongs. This would mean that the people, through their elected representatives, would reassert meaningful control over the process, rather than letting the courts and chance perform the accommodation on an irrational basis.
It will take a heroic act of will for the majority to initiate a political compromise on this emotionally charged issue. As with democracy itself, the alternatives are much worse. Bibliography: Works Cited Ortman, Jack. The Death Penalty: An essay by Jack Ortman. New Brunswick Publishing Co: New York. Copyright 1999.
Bender, David and Leone, Bruno. The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. Green haven Press, Inc: San Diego, CA. Copyright 1996. Costanzo, Mark.
Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty. St. Martins Press: New York. Copyright 1997.
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Research essay sample on 000 Per Year Death Penalty
