Capital Punishment - Legal Punishment of Death for Violating Criminal Law
By: Vika • Research Paper • 753 Words • November 25, 2009 • 1,568 Views
Essay title: Capital Punishment - Legal Punishment of Death for Violating Criminal Law
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
The definition of capital punishment is the legal punishment of death for violating criminal law. The person who gets capital punishment is the ones who committed serious crimes. Methods of capital punishment throughout the world are by stoning, beheading, hanging, electrocution, lethal injection and shooting. The two most common methods capital punishment use in the United States are lethal injection and electrocution.
The lethal injection is the most used form of capital punishment. It’s an intravenous shot that kills the criminal quick and painless. When capital punishment is done by electrocution the criminal is strapped to a chair that a volts of electricity is pass through.
In America if all people agree with capital punishment there will be less crimes. Capital punishment is different in each state, so depending on what state a crime is committed there’s different punishments for committing serious crime. To deter and reduce serious crimes all states need to have the same laws. Crimes can only be reduced or deterred by making people frightened of being arrested, convicted, and punish for crimes the commit.
When a person commits a serious crime, which causes another life to be lost, they should have their right to live taken. If there was a standard law in which capital punishment was permitted in all fifty states, serious crimes will be reduce. When people already know that if they will be executed for taking another life, people will think before committing a crime which takes someone life. It should be a law that when commit a crime which causes a life, as soon as they are founded guilty their life should be taken.
The first pros of capital punishment are that it works as deterrence against major crimes. The death penalty is a punishment that creates fear in the mind of any sane person. Most criminals would think twice if they knew their own lives were at stake. Although there is no statistical evidence that death penalty deters crime, we have to agree that most of us fear death.
The most conclusive evidence that criminals fear the death penalty more than life without parole is provided by convicted capital murderers and their attorneys. 99.9% of all convicted capital murderers and their attorneys argue for life, not death, in the punishment phase of their trial. (prodeathpenalty)
A Second pro is that a criminal that is executed can’t another crime or escape. A dead criminal can no longer commit a crime, and therefore the danger to the public is permanently removed.
A third pro of capital punishment is that it’s more economical. Why should money be spent on a criminal when it could be spent on education, the sick, or the needy? The only reason why it is so expensive to execute an individual, is because of the numerous appeal processes. (~ab2166)