Reflections on the Death Penalty
Reflections on the Death Penalty
For centuries the death penalty has been used to as a punishment for the crime of taking another’s life, but does it really have the desired affect on the populace to discourage others from committing the same offense? The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes, and now in the year 2007 we still sentence men to death, with enough given circumstances. Should we as an ever evolving society still carry out punishments on our fellow man with the direct intent to end another person’s life? This compare and contrast essay is about the pros and cons of the death penalty and whether or not it is a proven deterrent to criminals and whether or not it is a humane form of punishment in today’s culture. Our society has always used punishment to discourage potential criminals from committing unlawful actions, since society puts the highest interest in preventing murder it should also use the strongest punishment available to prevent murder. The purpose of the death penalty is to deter would be killers and force them to think twice about such actions, “Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else”(Ernest van den Haag). According to Isaac Ehrlich in 1973 who employed a new type of study found that for every one inmate who was executed at least seven lives were saved because others fared the consequences of similar actions. Even if there are such slim results it still seems worth it if the things in which we are saving are lives, “Sparing the lives of even a few prospective victims by deterring their murderers is more important than preserving the lives of convicted murderers” (Ernest van den Haag). Another study shows that the death penalty
For centuries the death penalty has been used to as a punishment for the crime of taking another’s life, but does it really have the desired affect on the populace to discourage others from committing the same offense? The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammaurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes, and now in the year 2007 we still sentence men to death, with enough given circumstances. Should we as an ever evolving society still carry out punishments on our fellow man with the direct intent to end another person’s life? This compare and contrast essay is about the pros and cons of the death penalty and whether or not it is a proven deterrent to criminals and whether or not it is a humane form of punishment in today’s culture. Our society has always used punishment to discourage potential criminals from committing unlawful actions, since society puts the highest interest in preventing murder it should also use the strongest punishment available to prevent murder. The purpose of the death penalty is to deter would be killers and force them to think twice about such actions, “Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else”(Ernest van den Haag). According to Isaac Ehrlich in 1973 who employed a new type of study found that for every one inmate who was executed at least seven lives were saved because others fared the consequences of similar actions. Even if there are such slim results it still seems worth it if the things in which we are saving are lives, “Sparing the lives of even a few prospective victims by deterring their murderers is more important than preserving the lives of convicted murderers” (Ernest van den Haag). Another study shows that the death penalty
Cited: Pro-death penalty.com. 18 July. 1998 AOL.com CFC Campaign.com. 27 March. 2007 http://www.ncadp.org/ Deathpenaltyinfo.org. 2007 Newmediamill.com Cornell Death Penalty Project. 2006 Cornell University Law Library The Green Mile. King, Stephen. 1999 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Mile_(film)