A comparison between the facts for and against capital punishment

Will people become so fed up with escalating levels of crime and what they see in, most cases, as derisory punishments that they will support anything that appears likely to reduce crime and redress the balance.

In Japan they are informed within the last hour or so of their life so that they never know when they will be taken to the gallows. Would this be a deterrent or merely become a morbid show for the voyeuristic.

Those costs were incurred simply to seek the death penalty where the ultimate outcome was a life or long-term prison sentence.

Death Penalty Information Center www. Electrocution can cause a quick death when all goes well, but seems to have a greater number of technical problems than any other method, often with the most gruesome consequences.

Whatever method is selected should have some deterrent value whilst not deliberately causing a slow or agonising death. At the end of the debate, we would seem to be left with three options.

If such a referendum produced a clear yes vote, the government would have a genuine mandate to proceed upon and could claim the support of the people, thus substantially reducing the influence of the anti-capital punishment lobby.

During the late 70's and early 80's when executions were rare in America, every execution by whatever means, attracted a great deal of media interest and yet now they are more frequent normally averaging over one per weekthe authorities sometimes have difficulty in finding sufficient official witnesses.

I have no doubt that if we were to declare war on criminals in this fashion, we would see a rapid decline in serious crime but at what cost in human terms.

In the US the person will have their execution date set often three months in advance and have to deal with the approach of it. In Britain when we had the death penalty, three clear Sundays had to elapse between sentence and execution, although this period could increase somewhat if the prisoner appealed.

Obviously one cannot be inside the brain of a person as they are being out to death to know what, if any, pain they are feeling. The general consensus among social scientists is that the deterrent effect of the death penalty is at best unproven.

There will be a lot of innocent victims - principally the families of those executed. People support it but they don't understand the hidden facts behind this controversial agenda.

Race and place determine who lives and who dies. The time taken in the actual preparations prior to the execution, e. I wonder if in another hundred years we will, as a world still have capital punishment at all or for that matter prisons, or whether we will have evolved technological means of detecting and correcting potential criminals before they can actually commit any crime.

What about crimes such as violent rape, terrorism and drug trafficking - are these as bad as murder. Indiana Two state analyses of the costs of the death penalty in Indiana found that "the out-of-pocket expenditures associated with death penalty cases were significantly more expensive than cases for which prosecuting attorneys requested either life without parole or a term of years.

There is no doubt that capital punishment is a very emotive issue and there is a strong anti-death penalty lobby in this country who would put every obstacle in the way of its return should it ever become likely. Thus a modern day Ruth Ellis might also hang because she was sane, whilst Beverley Allitt, who murdered 4 small children, would be reprieved because she has Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy or so she and certain psychiatrists claim.

It is doubtful whether executions carried out on this basis will deter others from committing crimes. But, a woman convicted of double murder and being injected on the same gurney gets tremendous worldwide media attention at all levels Karla Faye Tucker.

Yet these particular criminals are the least likely to be executed, the serial killers will be found insane and the drug barons will use any means to avoid conviction, e. Those who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to die than those who kill African-Americans.

Even if the state errs or acts unjustly, the duty to punish criminals remains. Reintroduction of something that has been abolished is always much more difficult than introducing something entirely new.

The typical psychopath is often a person of above average intelligence but is presently incurable and will continue to present a severe risk to society. While some claim that it is an effective way of curbing the crime rate, others argue that it is an inhumane and cruel method of punishment.

All costs are in dollars. This is similar to the situation which obtains in China and would, if applied in Britain, undoubtedly lead to a large number of executions to begin with until the message got through.

So it is with the life of the criminal. The vast majority of countries in Western Europe, North America and South America — more than nations worldwide — have abandoned capital punishment in law or in practice. Death Penalty Information Center www. Yet we live in a time of ever rising serious crime despite what the government tells us.

Trials involving a death sentence averaged 34 days, including jury selection; non-death trials averaged about 9 days. When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states.

The average of murder rates perpopulation in among death penalty states waswhereas the average of murder rates among non-death penalty states. Capital punishment goes against almost every religion.

Although isolated passages of the Bible have been quoted in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral. What is the difference between Capital Punishment and Death Penalty? • Technically, the death penalty is the actual act of killing the individual whether through lethal injection, electric chair, shooting or any other method.

Jul 08,  · Essay on Capital Punishment. In this essay I will hope to set out both sides of the argument, for and against Capital Punishment. The advantages and the disadvantages will be considered in conjunction with Christian teachings and belief.

The Christian teachings, Old Testament and New Testament will also be compared with. Amnesty International released their annual report on capital punishment this week, highlighting information on the differing ways countries handle execution around the world. Here are five.

Capital punishment is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment and since ancient times it has been used for a wide variety of offences. The Bible prescribes death for murder and many other crimes including kidnapping and witchcraft.

A comparison between the facts for and against capital punishment