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The Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

1525 Words7 Pages

There are a lot of arguments made for the death penalty. While many believe that the death penalty is suppressing criminal activity more than it is stopping it all together, the concept of this so called ‘deterrence’ is argued by many that it isn’t effective against criminal minds, especially if they have some sort of mental illness. Criminals rarely think about the consequences of their crimes of action and this is especially true with crimes of passion. Due to the severity of prisoners’ crimes on death row, it cost much more to feed, house, and seclude these often dangerous inmates than if they were simply put to death. By executing criminals, the death penalty takes away the burden of housing them within different prisons. Prison overcrowding …show more content…

The report concluded: “The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or have no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide. Consequently, claims that research demonstrates that capital punishment decreases or increases the homicide rate by a specified amount or has no effect on the homicide rate should not influence policy judgments about capital punishment." Criminologist Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon, who chaired the panel of experts said, “We recognize this conclusion will be controversial to some, but nobody is well served by unfounded claims about the death penalty. Nothing is known about how potential murderers actually perceive their risk of punishment." (D. Nagin and J. Pepper, "Deterrence and the Death Penalty," Committee on Law and Justice at the National Research Council, April 2012; D. Vergano, "NRC: Death penalty effect research 'fundamentally flawed'," USA Today, April 18,

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