Effectiveness Of The Death Penalty As A Means Of Reducing Crime

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Effectiveness of the Death Penalty as a Means of Reducing Crime

A commonly used phrase for the Death Penalty is Capital Punishment, meaning, “The infliction of the death penalty for the commission of certain crimes.” American Heritage Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin Company, pg. 200. At one level, the death penalty is a minor issue. The media informs the public of horrible crimes committed, but few people are directly affected by those crimes. Few people are sentenced to death for crimes and fewer are ever executed. Inmates on death row represent only about one-tenth of 1% of inmates in prisons or jail.(Stassen, pg.15.) Several thousand on death row have been awaiting execution for over 10 years. At another level, the death penalty represents a couple of concerns for everyone: the value of human life and how to protect it. Death penalty supporters, in addition to believing the people who commit appalling crimes deserve to die, they also believe it prevents others contemplating such crimes from committing them. Opponents of the death penalty believe it is immoral and a civilized society would not employ the death penalty. They maintain that the perpetrators of such crimes can be dealt with by other means. Let’s take a look at the history of the death penalty in our country.
During the colonial times death penalty laws varied from colony to colony. One extreme was the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, which listed 12 death-eligible crimes: (1) idolatry, (2) witchcraft, (3) blasphemy, (4) murder, (5) manslaughter, (6) poisoning, (7) bestiality, (8) sodomy, (9) adultery, (10) man-stealing, (11) false witness in capital cases (12) conspiracy and rebellion. (Bohm 1999). All of the crimes except conspiracy and rebellion were accompanied by a Biblical quotation as justification. The other extreme was the law of the Quakers who were less punitive than their neighbors. In the Royal Charter of South Jersey, capital punish...