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Death Penalty Deterrence

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Deterrence
For- Society has always used punishment to deter people from committing crime. With homicide being considered one of the worst and unnatural crimes wouldn’t you use the worst punishment available to punish the person who committed the crime? If murderers are put to death then maybe potential murderers will think twice before killing in the fear that they may lose their own lives.
Naci Cohan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver was a co-author on a published a study in 2003 and re-examined in 2006 that shows evidence that the death penalty does in fact deter homicide. More specifically that data showed that for every execution five homicides were prevented. The study is also unbiased Naci Cohan is quoted …show more content…

Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder published a study in the Journal of Criminal law and Criminology that shows that Eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists does not believe the death penalty acts a deterrent to homicide. Eighty-seven percent of the criminologists who took this survey also believe that abolition of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates. The threat of the death penalty is unlikely to enter a person’s mind when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol or they are so enraged that they are prepared to commit homicide. Studies show that states that do not have the death penalty have consistently lower rates of murder than states that do use the death penalty as …show more content…

With the advance in DNA evidence it’s almost difficult to commit someone of these crimes when they are actually innocent. Even when innocent people are placed on death row evidence comes up showing that they are innocent taking them off of it. Orrin G. Hatch, JD, US Senator, in his June 13, 2000 speech "Statement of Senator Orrin Hatch Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on 'Post-Conviction DNA Testing: When Is Justice Served?'," stated, “Advanced DNA testing improves the just and fair implementation of the death penalty. While reasonable people can differ about capital punishment, it is indisputable that advanced DNA testing lends support and credibility to the accuracy and integrity of capital verdicts. In short, we are in a better position than ever before to ensure that only the guilty are executed.” Against- Although we have DNA evidence it does not mean that it is always conclusive. People get put and taken off of death row after finding more evidence later on. Who is to say that some of those people who are put to death are all guilty? There is always the chance that that person was wrongfully blamed for the crime. The fact that there is any chance at all that the person being put to death is innocent outweighs putting someone who is actually guilty to

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DNA has given some innocents their freedom, but others are still being locked up. Jurors are giving guilty verdicts to people who don’t deserve it based on theories and confessions that may have been beaten out of them. It was reported in the studies that exculpatory DNA does sometimes help a defendant that had confessed, but then prosecutors come up with theories and that doesn’t help the defendants, as was the case of Joseph Buffey (Appleby & Kassin, 2016). I didn’t expect for exculpatory DNA not to be taken into consideration when prosecutors told a theory that can explain why DNA of the accused was not at the scene of the crime. It just doesn’t make sense.

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We know that DNA testing is giving hope to the hopeless in prison. Margret Berger (2006) comments, “Even though the number of inmates released as a consequence of DNA testing is minuscule in contrast to the two million persons incarcerated in the United States, the DNA exonerations have had an enormous impact on the fundamental assumptions about the American criminal justice system and how it operates.” Changes like the desirability of the death penalty, the growing concerns on how forensic laboratories operate alongside the increasing interest in forensic science overall. For instance, as the number of exonerations continues to rise, the number of people being placed on death row is decreasing thanks to Supreme Court rulings that juveniles under the age of 18 and the mentally ill cannot be sentenced to death. The death penalty is overall losing its appeal to society, not just because of the DNA testing, but people become aware of the wrongful convictions of other crimes as well.

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There are roughly 2.3 million people convicted for crimes, in that 2.3 million there are 704,000 people who are convicted for a "violent crime". 174,000 are convicted for murder, 17,000 for manslaughter, 165,000 for rape or sexual assault, 170,000 for robbery, 136,000 for assault and 43,000 for other violent crimes. Giving someone the death sentence can cause a domino effect on people's views of committing certain crimes. It acts as a deterrent in some

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1145 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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The term bullshit is used rather loosely and serves its purpose in making false pretenses with the added intention of manipulating an individual to believe in a specific case. Harry Frankfurt attested to that as he recognized bullshit to be a way of bending what is believed to be the truth. However, bullshit has been given various meanings and have been used in many different contexts that the term lacks any specificity. Because of the idea of bullshit, society communicates in a way where they convince themselves and others that some things are claimed to be true to attract the attention of their audience. People also use bullshit to justify their own case to avoid any further mishap from occurring.

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884 Words | 4 Pages

“I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.” -Nancy Reagan Most people would be shocked to hear that the death penalty saves lives. Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Gregg v. Georgia in 1976, capital punishment has been legally administered in 31 states in order to punish those who commit grievous crimes and harms to society. What makes capital punishment superior to other forms of punishment is that it generates the most happiness for all those actually or potentially affected by carrying it out. From a utilitarian perspective, capital punishment is morally justified because it maximizes human happiness.

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1009 Words | 5 Pages

One of the most cogent arguments against Capital Punishment is the fact that innocent people have been killed due to flaws in the justice system. Witnesses, prosecutors and jurors can all make mistakes, which could cost an innocent persons life, and these mistakes cannot be put right. In 1979, a total of 69 people have been released from death row in the US after evidence of their innocence had emerged. A historic example of this would be the Timothy Evans case in 1950 which was one of the most dreadful miscarriages of justice ever in the British legal system. Timothy Evans was wrongly convicted with the murder of his wife and daughter, and was therefore executed for a crime he had not committed and was further given a royal pardon in 1966.

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682 Words | 3 Pages

It does most times gives the victims` families closure and feeling of justice. As crazy as it sounds in some cases the victim(s)’ families does not want execution just simple jail time, but the states want

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475 Words | 2 Pages

The thought of the death penalty is simple really, if the accused person is too dangerous to be around society without endangering those around them, then society has the right to eliminate them.

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530 Words | 3 Pages

The death penalty is one of many controversial topics that are present in modern day society in the United States and has been a subject for debate since it was first established. Since the establishment of capital punishment many organizations have been formed to support the abolition or the maintenance of capital punishment. These organizations and the people who form them have developed arguments that support their position in the death penalty argument. Some arguments that have been presented talk about the morality, efficiency, constitutionality, or benefits and disadvantages of capital punishment. In recent years, the arguments of the anti-death penalty movement have become stronger and more prominent than those of the advocates of the

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486 Words | 2 Pages

Pro capital punishment citizens see this as a warning to other criminals. "In a larger sense, capital punishment is the ultimate warning against all crimes" (flamehorse). People who commit crimes usually know the consequences of what their actions will be. If there is a nationwide statement for all states that if you take a life, and you are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, you will die.

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1652 Words | 7 Pages

As a specific deterrent capital punishment is efficient: the perpetrator cannot kill again and more innocent lives might be saved. The relevant question might however be: to what degree are murderers likely to kill again? Is capital punishment likely to prevent future killings? A study quoted by Robinson says that, out of 238 paroled offenders, less than 1 % were returned to prison for committing a subsequent homicide. Sunstein and Vermeule suggest that studies show that 18 lives are saved per execution.

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797 Words | 4 Pages

Some of you may not be aware that the death penalty still exists in multiple countries, and others may support it. But yes, it is a thing and one that more people should be involved in. My son was put to death for the 1992 murder of 70-year-old John Watson of Covington. But no hard evidence had proven he was at the scene of the crime.

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856 Words | 4 Pages

Not all capital crimes deserve death. The sentence should be tailored to the offense done by an individual (Novak, 2013). Humans always make mistakes. Judges and Juries are human and that does not mean that they will not make mistake while they make their judgement on an offender. Dhillon, Mohammad and Ng (2012) state that although most of the capital crimes require sensible evidence before a person is sentence to death, it does not guarantee that no mistakes when a conviction is make.

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607 Words | 3 Pages

In conclusion, the death penalty should be brought back in to action, as it is proven to be a useful tool to maintain criminal behaviour within our societies. With the opinions of professionals and the help of the justice system functioning at a level where innocent individuals are not being wrongly convicted, we will be able to maintain deterrence and retribution within our country. It is very important that our legal system steps up to plate making the death penalty back into action to serve justice properly to those individuals who truly deserve

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