Annotated Bibliography Draft Student name : Haider Zafaryab Student number: 2360526 Thesis Statement : Capital Punishment is a very controversial topic around the globe. I believe that it does more harm than good and breeds violence in society. Source 1: Radelet, M. L., & Akers, R. L. (1996). Deterrence and the Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 87(1), 1. doi:10.2307/1143970 This article was written by Michael L. Radelet and Ronald L. Akers. They both consulted experts on criminology and criminal behaviour to evaluate the effectiveness of the Death Penalty. They used the Gullup and Ellsworth/Ross Surveys to gather the public opinion on death penalty. Their research showed that majority …show more content…
This article discusses individual cases and crimes and gives analysis of the arguments made against death penalty in real world. Firstly it discusses the deterrence argument while going through a number of cases. The conclusion is that it has no effect on reducing homicides but ironically it breeds violence as in some cases offenders committed a capital crime in a territory where execution still prevails while they could have easily avoided it. Second thing discussed is the cost, the research in article shows that it costs significantly more money to put a convict to death than to incarcerate him for life in a prison. Moreover it is shown that in many cases criminals are executed while there are reasonable doubts in their convictions and some have avoided execution by just a few hours before being exonerated. Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three …show more content…
Interviews of retired employees to study the effects of capital punishment were taken and analysed qualitatively. Political and religious orientations, perceptions in racism were key variables to study the changes in time; Prison services were also closely studied. The main topic of this study was to see how capital punishment dehumanises both the prison inmates and staff. Well established theories provided an analysis that culture is a very strong factor in making people agree or disagree with the use of capital punishment, regardless of their own beliefs. Findings concluded that those who held pro-death penalty positions were raised in religious traditions that taught capital punishment consistent with the Bible, while those who were anti-death penalty were raised in such traditions which did not support this notion. Although political orientations varied among all participants, all concluded that they would not be bothered by the demolition of capital punishment. This study did not test a theory or hypothesis rather research questions were