Capital Punishment

16 Pages 4101 Words

Capital Punishment


Capital Punishment – An Overview “The question with which we must deal is not whether a substantial proportion of American citizens would today, if polled, opine that capital punishment is barbarously cruel, but whether they would find it to be so in light of all information presently available.”- Justice Thurgood Marshall Imagine a man who commits murder once, is given a fifteen-year jail sentence and is returned to the streets where he kills again. He is imprisoned again only to be released. This could happen since almost one in ten death row inmates has been convicted of murder at least once. That means that some death row inmates have been given more than one chance to rehabilitate in prison and continue to commit violent crimes. Should the United States justice system continue to let violent criminals back on the streets where they are likely to commit murder again? Capital punishment is one of the oldest forms of punishment in the world. Most societies have considered it a fair punishment for severe crimes. It is even mentioned as an appropriate punishment in the Bible. American colonists used capital punishment before the United States was a country, and most states use it today. Currently, however, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the death penalty. Capital cases are long and expensive, and there is no proof as to whether capital punishment deters crime. For these reasons total abolition may be the best way to resolve the capital punishment controversy. If the laws concerning capital punishment were modified, however, capital punishment could become much cheaper, and possibly a lot more effective. – Steve Brinker Capital Punishment: Give It A Chance Since the beginning of man, people have been put to death. Capital punishment has been used all over the world as a means of punishing people for their crimes. Here in America, people are usually given a trial for their crime, judged u...