The Death Penalty: We Should Abolish It
Having a death penalty in the United States doesn't make sense. We are the only civilized Western nation that still has it (Clark et al, 2004). Other nations consider the death penalty immoral and opposed to democratic principles because it allows the government to kill citizens, which violates fundamental human rights and increases the likelihood of tyranny. As a punishment for crime, the death penalty cannot be administered fairly or impartially in our criminal justice system ("Innocence and the Death Penalty," 2005). Some of the people who get executed are innocent (Hall, 2003). From a practical standpoint, the death penalty is an expensive and ineffective way to control crime (Sherrill, 2001). The death penalty should be abolished in the United States. We did not always have the death penalty. During the 1950s and early 1960s most Americans were against capital punishment and those in favor of it were a "distinct and dwindling minority," according to the Supreme Court. But Richard Nixon revived the idea as a national campaign issue for his presidential election in 1968, and Ronald Reagan the same for his California gubernatorial campaign in 1972 (Sherrill, 2001). The result was that executions were re-instituted.
Those in favor of the death penalty always point out that it is the will of America, that the majority of Americans are in favor of it. This is no longer true. The number of Americans in favor of keeping a death penalty has been steadily decreasing since 2000 and there has been "a massive shift" because of a "crisis in confidence" (Hall, 2003 & Whitehead, 2002). For example, in California where there are more people on death row than anywhere else, a poll indicated last year that citizens by 4 to 1 "favored stopping state executions to study how the death penalty was being applied" ("Hate vs. Death," p. 9). A national poll found 53 percent in favor of a moratorium. The death penalty is a barbaric and outmoded form of punishment. In a double message it says, "Don't kill anybody. If you do, we'll kill you." When killing people is authorized by the state, a violent tone is set for all of society. The death penalty cannot be administered fairly. The hundreds of millions of dollars that it costs to execute people could be better spent by increasing the number of police in the streets and by support of social programs and services for youth that would help to prevent violent crime. The death penalty makes the United States hypocritical in the eyes of the rest of the world. We say we believe in human rights but we fail to practice what we preach. We should abolish the death penalty. Who gets the death penalty is problematic. Those who favor capital punishment argue that it gets dangerous criminals off the streets thereby insuring more safety to the public. However, sentences of life in prison with no possibility of parole have been shown to effectively keep criminals off the street. Many states have already adopted laws that permit this kind of a sentence. It effectively stops the "revolving door" people fear with the sentencing of violent criminals (Sherrill, 2001). The rest of the world does not approve of our actions. Retaining the death penalty in the United States is putting a strain on foreign relations. Clark et al (2004) points out that the United States "is out of step with an emergin
Some common words found in the essay are:
School Law, Scott Peterson, Iceland Russia, European Union, Reagan California, , Death Penalty, death penalty, United States', Ryan Illinois, Criminal Court, sherrill 2001, human rights, death row, capital punishment, hall 2003, crime death, crime death penalty, death penalty administered, 2003 dna, rest world, favor death penalty, penalty administered, et al 2004, penalty administered fairly,
Approximate Word count = 1435
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
