Capital Punishment Essay: Flaws Of The Death Penalty

Flaws of the Death Penalty Should the death penalty be allowed in our society? Many people find the death penalty to be helpful in ways such as to deter crime, however, others perceive the death penalty as costly and a way to discriminate minorities. The high costs contributing to the death penalty is shown to have little or no effect as the death penalty, itself, is a bad way to penalize a culprit. The death penalty also creates a discriminatory effect against minorities. Depending on the social class and race of the accused, they may or may not receive the death penalty. The death penalty needs to be abolished due to its high costs and discrimination against minorities, however, people believe the death penalty deters crime, but has this been proven to be true? The death penalty is exceedingly expensive and also inefficient. A death penalty case will take longer, and have more complications than an ordinary criminal case. In a case that has the death penalty as the final ruling, there would be a fifteen year gap between the execution and the ruling. The costs of the death penalty is also increasing every time someone is executed. “In 1988, Florida’s Miami Herald estimated the costs of the death penalty to be $3.2 million per

The death penalty creates an advantage or disadvantage towards different races. “Blacks make up 12% of the U.S. population, and 48% of them are on death row. If the person is black receiving the verdict, the chances of getting the death penalty increase by 38%” (Bushman). Depending also on how well represented the person is during trial, they may or may not get the death penalty. To add on, if the accused is wealthy, they will have higher chances of not receiving the death penalty than a poor accused person would. Discrimination is a huge factor that leads to the ineffectiveness of the death penalty as a lot of people are executed due to their skin color or