Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to criminals. As stated by Alfred Blumstein, "Expert after expert and study after study has shown the lack of correlation between the threat of the death penalty and the occurrence of violent crimes." (Blumstein 68) Isaac Ehrlich's study on the limiting effects of capital punishment in America reveals this to the public. The study spans twenty-five years, from 1957 till 1982, and shows that in the first year the study was conducted, there were 8060 murders and 6 executions. However, in the last year of the study there were 22,520 murders committed and only 1 execution performed. (Blumstein 54) This clearly shows that many violent criminals are not afraid of the capital punishment. Abolitionists believe the offenders should be required to compensate the victim's family with the offender's own income from employment or community service. There is no doubt that someone can do more alive than dead. By work!

ing, the criminal inadvertently "pays back" society and also their victim and/or victim's family. This could be considered a form of slavery to some, but it is no different from the days of being sent to the "yar

s while still conscious. In a statement to the Associated Press, many police officials who have been witnesses to the death penalty, say it should be abolished because they are sick of having to watch it and it does not deter violent criminals from lashing out against society. The belief that execution cost less than imprisonment is absolutely false. As Haag states "The cost of the apparatus and maintenance of the procedures attending the death penalty, including the actual stay on death row, and the endless appeals and legal machinery, far out-weigh the expense of maintaining in prison the tiny fraction of criminals who would otherwise be slain." (Haag 38) The strongest argument against using capital punishment for retributive purposes is the dispute that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, condemning cruel and unusual punishment, is used to protect the death penalty. The fallacy of this argument is that i!

mmitment to atone their crimes by serving others."(Bedau 217) The most widely used form of execution in this century, has been electrocution. With this method of executing a prisoner, the individual is strapped to a chair along with electrodes attached all over the body. The executioner then proceeds to "throw the switch" sending vast amounts of electricity flowing throughout the prisoner. During this process, the prisoners flesh burns and the body shakes violently from the overdose of electricity. When it is all over, smoke is often seen coming from the head of the corpse. (Ernest Van den Haag 135) Officials often defend this punishment as not being cruel and unusual, but how can they defend the opinion in the case of John Evans who was executed by electrocution in 1983? According to witnesses at the scene of the death of Mr. Evans, he was given three charges of electricity over a period of fourteen minutes. After the first and second charges, Mr. Evans was still conscious an!

American Civil Liberties Union. Goher:/gopher.pipeline.com: 70/00/society/

t appears to be a "red herring" argument, one that takes attention away from the facts of the case. When the constitution was drafted, capital punishment was practiced widely in this country, yet was not specified as wrong of cruel and unusual. Many of the framers of the constitution endorsed the death penalty, as did philosophers from which the constitution draws from. John Lock went so far as to say, "...that murder is not intrinsically wrong. Man, as he is bound to preserve himself and not quite his station willfully, by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind." (Bedau 277) An argument against the death penalty is the basic moral issue of conservation of human rights and humanity. The argument of retribution would be even easier to dismiss if it consisted only of a basic thirst for revenge. As s

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1978
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)