Throughout history, governments have been extremely inventive in devising ways to execute people. Executions inflicted in the past are now regarded today as ghastly, barbaric, and unthinkable and are forbidden by law almost everywhere. Common historical methods of execution included: stoning, crucifixion, burning, breaking on the wheel, drawing and quartering, peine forte et dure, garroting, beheading or decapitation, shooting and hanging (Kronenwetter 171). These types of punishments today are considered cruel and unusual. In the United States, the death penalty is currently authorized in one of five ways: firing squad, hanging, gas ch

amber, electrocution, and lethal injection. These methods of execution compared to those of the past are not meant for torture, but meant for punishment for the crime.

Most retentionists (people for capital punishment) argue that none of this statistical evidence proves that capital punishment does not deter potential criminals. There is absolutely no way prove, with any certainty, how many would-be murderers were in fact deterred from killing (Carrington 82). They point out that the murder rate in any given state depends on many things besides whether or not that state has capital punishment. They cite such factors as the proportion of urban residents in the state, the level of economic prosperity, and the social and racial makeup of the population. But a small minority is ready to believe in these statistics and to abandon the deterrence argument. But they defend the death penalty base on other arguments, relying primarily on the need to protect society from killers who are considered high risks for killing again.

Abolitionists say the cost of execution has become increasingly expensive and that life sentence is more economical. A study of the Texas criminal system estimated the cost of appealing capital murder at $2,316,655. This high cost includes $265,640 for the trial; $294,240 for the state appeals; $113,608 for federal appeals (over six years); and $135,875 for death row housing. In contrast, the cost of housing a prisoner in a Texas maximum security prison single cell for 40 years is estimated at $750,000. This is a huge amount of taxpayer money but the public looks at it as an investment in safety since these murders will never kill again. Retentionists argue that these high costs are due to "the lengthy time and the high expense result from innumerable appeals, many over 'technicalities' which have little or nothing to do with the question of guilt or innocence, and do little more than jam up the nation's court system. If these 'frivolous' appeals were eliminated, the procedure would neither take so long nor cost so much" (Kronenwetter 29).

Abolitionists claim that capital punishment does not deter murderers from killing or killing again. They base most of their argument against deterrence on statistics. States that use it extensively show a higher murder rate than those that have abolished the death penalty. Also, states that have abolished the death penalty and then reinstituted it show no significant change in the murder rate. They say adjacent states with the death penalty and those without show no long term differences in the number of murders that occur in that state. And finally, there has been no record of change in the rate of homicides in a given city or state following a local execution. Any possibly of deterring a would-be murderer from killing has little effect.

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Approximate Word count = 1909
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)