Argument Against the Death Penalty
Argument Essay for the Death Penalty
Every day through media streams, we hear news about murders, homicides, and killing. It is hard to spend a day without hearing about these things nowadays. We have our own right to our own lives, but that doesn’t mean we have rights to the person sitting next to us or anyone else. I’ve studied on this topic for almost a year now and I know main issues related to this topic and a few important historical movements related to the death penalty. In the past few years, the death penalty was a controversial issue in many pro death penalty nations like the United States, China, Iran and many more. Since 1990, more than thirty countries abolished the death penalty because it was considered immoral (www.deathpenaltyinfo.com). Supporters of the death penalty consider killing the person who killed others people and that supports why the death penalty is immoral in many ways. First, it violates religious views and beliefs, innocent people get wrongly accused and mostly executed, costs way too much money, and lastly it is not how we deal with crimes.
California and Oklahoma were two states involved in the death penalty survey proving that it has reduced crime rate or not (Gorecki).The survey proved to be negative showing that the death penalty actually had increased crime rate rather than decreasing it (Gorecki). Professor Craig Haney of University of California at Santa Cruz conducted the survey on 800 citizens of Santa Cruz, they were chosen randomly by their social security numbers (Gorecki). Professor Haney conducted this same kind of survey back in 1989 when he received strong favor of the death penalty (Gorecki). In 1989, 74% of 800 citizens favored the death penalty, but in 2009, those numbers fell drastically to 44% (www.deathpenaltyinfo.com).The Supreme Court cases Ballard v. Florida, Thibodeaux v. Louisiana are some of the many recent cases of innocent execution that took place in less than a decade
Every day through media streams, we hear news about murders, homicides, and killing. It is hard to spend a day without hearing about these things nowadays. We have our own right to our own lives, but that doesn’t mean we have rights to the person sitting next to us or anyone else. I’ve studied on this topic for almost a year now and I know main issues related to this topic and a few important historical movements related to the death penalty. In the past few years, the death penalty was a controversial issue in many pro death penalty nations like the United States, China, Iran and many more. Since 1990, more than thirty countries abolished the death penalty because it was considered immoral (www.deathpenaltyinfo.com). Supporters of the death penalty consider killing the person who killed others people and that supports why the death penalty is immoral in many ways. First, it violates religious views and beliefs, innocent people get wrongly accused and mostly executed, costs way too much money, and lastly it is not how we deal with crimes.
California and Oklahoma were two states involved in the death penalty survey proving that it has reduced crime rate or not (Gorecki).The survey proved to be negative showing that the death penalty actually had increased crime rate rather than decreasing it (Gorecki). Professor Craig Haney of University of California at Santa Cruz conducted the survey on 800 citizens of Santa Cruz, they were chosen randomly by their social security numbers (Gorecki). Professor Haney conducted this same kind of survey back in 1989 when he received strong favor of the death penalty (Gorecki). In 1989, 74% of 800 citizens favored the death penalty, but in 2009, those numbers fell drastically to 44% (www.deathpenaltyinfo.com).The Supreme Court cases Ballard v. Florida, Thibodeaux v. Louisiana are some of the many recent cases of innocent execution that took place in less than a decade
Cited: Bohm, Robert M. Ultimate Sanction: Understanding the Death Penalty through Its Many Voices and Many Sides. New York: Kaplan Pub., 2010. Print. 13 Feb. 2013 Costanzo, Mark: Just revenge: costs and consequences of the death penalty; St. Martin 's Press, New York, Academic Search Complete, 1997. Print. 18 January 2013. Gorecki, Jan. Capital Punishment: Crimial Law and Social Evolution. New York: Columbia UP, Academic Search Complete, 2000. Print. 22 January 2013. Guernsey, JoAnn Bren. The Death Penalty: Fair Solution or Moral Failure? Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century, 2010. Print. 22 February 2013. Schabas, William. The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, Academic Search Complte 1997. Print. 11 February 2013. Winters, Paul A. The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, Academic Search Complete 1997. Print. 20 February 2013. United States. Bureau Of Justice. US Department of Justice. Prisoners in 2011. By Ann E. Carson and William J. Sabol. N.p., Dec. 2012. Web. 9 Apr. 2013. Cooper, David. "Deterrence: States Without the Death Penalty Have Had Consistently Lower Murder Rates." Death Penalty Information Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org >.