Bowman And Dilascio The Case Against The Death Penalty

Capital Punishment: Life or Death?
The death penalty is defined as the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime. In the United States, capital punishment was once considered legal until the twentieth century. At this point in time, most of the executions were taking place in public with a majority of victims being African Americans. As a result of these actions, the Supreme Court ordained the death penalty unconstitutional. However, the decision of the death penalty was turned over to the states soon after with the conditions that each state took the court’s constitutional concerns into consideration. The states that currently have the death penalty in place are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky,
Should the death penalty be a form of capital punishment? In the article, “Counterpoint: The Death Penalty is Necessary,” Bowman and DiLascio argue that the death penalty is essential for many reasons. On the contrary, Freedman’s article, “The Case Against the Death Penalty,” has an excessive amount of motives to eliminate the death penalty completely. Bowman and DiLascio argue that the death penalty is necessary due to the fact that it is about the punishment of the crime rather than the deterrence of all crime, whereas, Freedman maintains a viewpoint that the death penalty should be abolished on account of it being exceptionally expensive, it reduces public safety, it is arbitrary in operation, and damages the criminal justice system in the process. Bowman and DiLascio present their point of view that the death penalty should still be in place, whereas, Freedman argues that the death penalty should not be a form of capital
The most significant of the points is that crime should be punished in some form. Freedman believes that the punishment should be life in prison while Bowman and DiLascio firmly believe that punishing the criminal by taking their life is the only way to achieve justice. In response to Bowman and DiLascio’s argument, Freedman claims that if it is not acceptable for the criminal to take the life of another person, the state should not be able to take the life of the criminal. Another concern that both sides of the issue have is the safety of society. According to Bowman and DiLascio, “There are literally thousands of statistics that claim the death penalty does not deter crime.” It has been proven that the death penalty neither reduces nor increases crime in the United States. Along with this, the execution of innocent people is not ever acceptable, and both sides recognize that. As stated by Freedman, “Capital punishment inevitably will be inflicted on the innocent.” Each of the authors disagree on the amount of innocent people that are wrongly convicted and are placed on death row, but still maintain the viewpoint that a person that did not commit the crime should not be put to death for something that they did not