Eye For An Eye

An Eye For An Eye Capital punishment has often been referred to as ‘an eye for an eye’. This idiomatic expression dates back to Mesopotamian times from Hammurabi’s Code. The phrase represents what many view as a harsh sense of justice based on a need for reprisal. What is the real purpose for capital punishment? Many Americans are becoming less and less concerned with using punishment as a deterrent for future crimes and more focused on using it as a means of retribution.
In a recent study, eighty-eight percent of criminologists from the National Research Council, believed that executions are not a deterrent to murder. Research suggests that offenders are predominantly afraid of whether they will be caught, and not on the repercussions that follow. Daniel Nagin, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, states "It's the certainty of apprehension that’s been demonstrated consistently to be an effective deterrent, not the severity of the ensuing consequences”( Nagin 1). In other words, people are more likely to commit a crime if they feel they
However, emotion should not exculpate a system of justice, with all of its accompanying problems. Which leads to the final problem with capital punishment; our laws and the criminal justice system should lead us to higher principles that demonstrate a complete respect for life, even the life of a murderer. Capital punishment encourages, if not attempts to justify, motives for revenge. Murder cannot be resolved through the taking of another human life. This would cause the very system that seeks justice to be reduced to something that is neither just nor adheres to higher principles. Answering violence with further violent punishment robs society of our basic humanity. And that is too high a price to pay. This really isn’t justice at all, but rather vengeance, thinly masked as a principle of