What Are Two Sides of the Death Penalty
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Transcript of What Are Two Sides of the Death Penalty
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What are two sides of the death penalty? Is it a cruel murderer or a just punishment?
Can it be a deterrent to crime?
Before going to the argument about death penalty first of all we all should know that what is death
penalty, the meaning f death penalty is given below;
What is Death Penalty?
Death penalty, also called capital punishment, is when a government or state executes (kills) someone,
usually because he or she has done a serious crime, such as murder.
Executions in most countries have become rarer in recent centuries. The death penalty is a disputed and
controversial topic.
About one third of the countries in the world have laws that allow the death penalty. The United States,
The People's Republic of China, Japan and Iran are examples of countries that have a death penalty.
Canada, Australia, Mexico and all members of Council of Europe are examples of countries that have
abolished the death penalty.
Over half the countries in the world have gotten rid of the death penalty in law and practice: 75
countries have gotten rid of the capital punishment for all crimes and another 20 can be considered
abolitionist in practice. The latter retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions
for the past 10 years or more.
Most of the countries that have a death penalty use it on murderers, and for other serious crimes such
as rape or terrorism. Other countries especially ones with Authoritarian or Totalitarian governments,
however, also use it for smaller crimes like theft, or for saying bad things about the government.
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Arguments “Against” And “For” The Death Penalty
Against
1) It Teaches the Condemned Nothing
What is the purpose of punishment? We take our lead from one major source, our parents—
and they no doubt took their lead from their own parents. When your young child emulates
what he just saw in a Rambo movie, you give him a stern lecture about what is real and what is
not, what is acceptable in real life and what is not. When your child tries some crazy acrobatic
move off a piece of furniture and hurts himself, you might spank him to be sure that he
remembers never to do it again. So when the child grows up, breaks into a home, and steals
electronics, he gets caught and goes to prison. His time in prison is meant to deprive him of the
freedom to go where he wants anywhere in the world, and to do what he wants when he
wants. This is the punishment, and most people do learn from it. In general, no one wants to
go back. But if that child grows up and murders someone for their wallet or just for fun, and
they are in turn put to death, they are taught precisely nothing, because they are no longer
alive to learn from it. We cannot rehabilitate a person by killing him or her.
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2) It Does Not Dissuade
If the foreknowledge of any punishment is meant to dissuade the criminal from committing the
crime, why do people still murder others? The US had a 2012 murder rate of 4.8 victims per
100,000—meaning that nearly 15,000 people were victims of homicide that year. Capital
punishment does not appear to be doing its job; it doesn’t seem to be changing every criminal’s
mind about killing innocent people. If it does not dissuade, then it serves no purpose. The
warning of life in prison without parole must equally dissuade criminals.
3) It Is Hypocritical
It is strange that a nation would denounce the practice of murder by committing the very same
act. By doing so, we’re essentially championing the right to life by taking it from others. True—
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as a whole, we are not murderers, and understandably refuse to be placed in the same
category as someone like Ted Bundy. But to many opponents of the death penalty, even Ted
Bundy should have been given life without parole. The fact that he murdered at least thirty
people—for the mere reason that he enjoyed doing it—has no bearing on the hypocrisy, the
flagrant dishonesty, of the declaration that such a person deserves to be killed because he had
no right to kill. If the goal of any punishment, as stated above, is to teach us those things we
should not do, then the justice system should more adequately teach the criminality of killing
by refusing to partake in it.
4) It Is Always Cruel
In the end, though, death is always at least a little painful. Perhaps the only truly peaceful way
to go is while asleep—but no one has ever come back to say that this didn’t hurt. If your heart
stops while you sleep, it is certainly possible that your brain will recognize a problem and wake
you up at the very moment when it is too late. So what we cannot help but let Nature do, we
ought not to force on others for any reason. If we do so, it might be fair to say that we law-
abiding people, who embody the justice system, are guilty of equal cruelty towards criminals
who commit murder. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for one,
dictates that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment.”In the US, there are five legal methods of execution: lethal injection,
electrocution, firing squad, hanging, and gassing. These are all intended to be as painless as
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possible, but they all run the risk of accidents. John Wayne Gacy, who was not afraid of death,
was executed via lethal injection—the most efficient, risk-free method. Yet his death did not go
as planned. The sodium thiopental entered his bloodstream successfully and put him to sleep.
The pancuronium bromide was then administered successfully to paralyze his diaphragm. This
would cause asphyxiation if the next chemical, potassium chloride, were not immediately
administered to stop the heart. But the potassium chloride had congealed in its tube before
Gacy was brought into the room. He was unconscious and unable to breathe for several
minutes while the last drug’s tube was changed. His death took eighteen minutes, instead of
the usual seven. And whether or not he was in great pain is impossible to determine.
5) Prison Is Hell on Earth
Consider a pedophile that kills an infant girl by raping her. There is an unwritten “code of
honor” in prisons that virtually requires inmates to kill such offenders. Probably half of
America’s prisoners were in some way abused as children, and harbor a seething hatred for
those who abuse children. The murdering pedophile is given the death penalty, but will
probably spend ten years beforehand in prison. He will most likely be housed in solitary
confinement for his own protection, but there are frequently holes in such protection, and the
inmates may find their way to him. And if this happens, pedophiles are often gang-raped,
castrated, beaten to death, stabbed, and sometimes even beheaded before guards—who may
deliberately ignore the scene—can save them. Most prisoners consider each other to be in the
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same predicament, and treat each other quite well in general. But they are still in prison, and
despair about their lack of freedom. What is life like for Zacarias Moussaoui, the member of
the September 11 hijacking teams who got caught a month before the attack? A single juror
saved him from death. He has, since 2006, been incarcerated for twenty-three hours per day in
a tiny concrete cell, with one hour of daily exercise in an empty concrete swimming pool; he
has no access to other inmates, and only rare contact with guards, who say nothing to him; he
can see nothing of the outside world except a tiny sliver of sky—and his will be his life. Capital
punishment is an unnecessary threat.
For
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1) It is the Ultimate Warning
Nevertheless, if would-be criminals know undoubtedly that they will be put to death should
they murder with premeditation, very many of them are much less inclined to commit murder.
Whether or not would-be criminals are wary of committing the worst crime is an important—
and probably impossible—question to answer. Murder still happens very frequently. So some
criminals disregard this warning for various reasons. But the fact does remain that many
criminals who ride the fence on committing murder ultimately decide to spare the victim’s life.
In a larger sense, capital punishment is the ultimate warning against all crimes. If the criminal
knows that the justice system will not stop at putting him to death, then the system appears
more draconian to him. Hence, he is less inclined to break and enter. He may have no
intention of killing anyone in the process of robbing them, but is much more apprehensive
about the possibility if he knows he will be executed. Thus, there is a better chance that he will
not break and enter in the first place.
2) It Provides Closure for Victims
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There are many victims of a single murder. The criminal gets caught, tried, and convicted, and
it is understood that the punishment will be severe. But the person he has killed no longer has
a part to play in this. Unfortunately, the murderer has deprived his family and friends of a
loved one. Their grief begins with the murder. It may not end with the murderer’s execution,
but the execution does engender a feeling of relief at no longer having to think about the
ordeal—a feeling which often fails to arise while the murderer still lives on. A system in place
for the purpose of granting justice cannot do so for the surviving victims, unless the murderer
himself is put to death.
3) It Is All That Would-be Criminals Fear
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If you read about Bundy’s life in prison, waiting nine years for his execution, you will see that
the man exhausted every single legal point he and his lawyers could think of, all in an attempt
to spare him execution. He “defended” himself in prison interviews by blaming pornography
for causing his uncontrollable teenage libido, and for causing him to think of women as objects
and not humans. He attempted to have his death sentence commuted to life without parole by
explaining that it was all pornography’s fault, and that had it never existed, he would have been
a good person. When that didn’t work, he pretended to come clean and tell police where the
bodies of unfound victims were, so that their families could have closure. He never once
admitted that he was a bad person, and just before his execution, he claimed that he hadn’t
done anything wrong. It was obvious that he feared being put to death. He did his best to
avert it. This means that he did not fear life in prison—at least not as much as he feared capital
punishment. He had many opportunities to kill himself in his cell, but he did not. He might
have done it a month before his execution, when all hope for clemency was gone—but he was
afraid of death. How many would-be murderers have turned away at the last second purely out
of fear of the executioner’s needle?
4) It Is Not Always Cruel
It’s true that cruelty should not be legally tolerated—and the five methods listed above are very
efficient in killing the condemned before he or she is able to feel it. Granted, we are not able to
ask the dead whether or not they felt their necks snap, or the chemicals burn inside them—but
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modern American executions very rarely go awry. It does happen, but the reported accidents
since 1976 number about ten nationwide, out of 1,328.When the condemned is fastened into
the electric chair, one of the conductors is strapped securely around the head with the bare
metal flush against the shaved and wet scalp. This permits the electricity to be conducted
directly into the brain, shutting it off more quickly than the brain can register pain. Hanging
causes death by snapping the neck of the condemned around the second vertebrae—instantly
shutting off the brain’s ability to communicate with the rest of the body, and causing the heart
to stop within seconds. The firing squad involves five men shooting the heart of the condemned
with high-powered rifles. The heart is completely destroyed and unconsciousness follows
within seconds. The gas chamber is now no longer forced on the condemned, because it
frequently appeared to cause more pain than was expected or acceptable. The gas is usually
hydrogen cyanide, which inhibits mitochondrial respiration in every cell of the entire body,
theoretically shutting off the brain like a light switch. But it requires that the condemned
breathe deeply.
5) It Is the Best Answer to Murder
The justice system basically attempts to mete out punishment that fits the crime. Severe
crimes result in imprisonment. ”Petty larceny” is not treated with the severity that is meted to
“grand theft auto,” and the latter, consequently, receives more time in prison. So if severe—
but non-lethal—violence toward another is found deserving of life without parole, then why
premeditated homicide should be given the very same punishment? This fact might induce a
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would-be criminal to go ahead and kill the victim he has already mugged and crippled. Why
would it matter, after all? His sentence could not get any worse. If murder is the willful
deprivation of a victim’s right to life, then the justice system’s willful deprivation of the
criminal’s right to the same is—even if overly severe—a punishment which fits the most severe
crime that can be committed. Without capital punishment, it could be argued that the justice
system makes no provision in response to the crime of murder, and thus provides no justice for
the victim.
Facts of “Death Penalty”
There are many reasons the death penalty should be abolished. It is a complex issue and it is
difficult to point to any single fact or argument as the most important.
1) Executions are carried out at staggering cost to taxpayers.
It costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 2011 study
found that California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was
reinstated in 1978 and that death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking
a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. California currently spends $184 million
on the death penalty each year and is on track to spend $1 billion in the next five years.
2) There is no credible evidence that capital punishment deters crime.
Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from
committing crime anymore than long prison sentences. Moreover, states without the death
penalty have much lower murder rates. The South accounts for 80% of US executions and has
the highest regional murder rate.
3) Innocent people have been convicted and executed.
The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified. Since
the reinstatement of the death penalty, 142 men and women have been released from Death
Row nationally....some only minutes away from execution. Moreover, in the past two years
evidence has come to light which indicates that four men may have been wrongfully EXECUTED
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in recent years for crimes they did not commit. This error rate is simply appalling, and
completely unacceptable, when we are talking about life and death.
4) Race plays a role in determining who lives and who dies.
The race of the victim and the race of the defendant in capital cases are major factors in
determining who is sentenced to die in this country. In 1990 a report from the General
Accounting Office concluded that "in 82 percent of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim
was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the
death penalty, i.e. those who murdered whites were more likely to be sentenced to death than
those who murdered blacks."
5) The death penalty is applied at random.
Politics, quality of legal counsel and the jurisdiction where a crime is committed are more often
the determining factors in a death penalty case than the facts of the crime itself. The death
penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 22,000 homicides committed every year approximately 100
people or less are sentenced to death.
6) Capital punishment goes against almost every religion.
Although isolated passages of religious scripture have been quoted in support of the death
penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral.
7) The USA is keeping company with notorious human rights abusers.
The vast majority of countries in Western Europe, North America and South America — more
than 140 nations worldwide — have abandoned capital punishment in law or in practice. The
United States remains in the same company as Iraq, Iran and China as one of the major
advocates and users of capital punishment.
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8) Millions Currently spent on the death penalty could be used to assist the families of
murder victims.
Many family members who have lost love ones to murder feel that the death penalty will not
heal their wounds nor will it end their pain; the extended process prior to executions can
prolong the agony experienced by the family. Funds now being used for the costly process of
executions could be used to help families put their lives back together through counseling,
restitution, crime victim hotlines, and other services addressing their needs.
9) Bad Lawyers are a Persistent Problem in Capital Cases
Perhaps the most important factor in determining whether a defendant will receive the death
penalty is the quality of the representation he or she is provided. Almost all defendants in
capital cases cannot afford their own attorneys. In many cases, the appointed attorneys are
overworked, underpaid, or lacking the trial experience required for death penalty cases. There
have even been instances in which lawyers appointed to a death case were so inexperienced
that they were completely unprepared for the sentencing phase of the trial. Other appointed
attorneys have slept through parts of the trial, or arrived at the court under the influence of
alcohol.
10) Life without Parole is a Sensible Alternative to the Death Penalty
In every state that retains the death penalty, jurors have the option of sentencing convicted
capital murderers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence is cheaper to
tax-payers and keeps violent offenders off the streets for good. Unlike the death penalty, a
sentence of Life without Parole also allows mistakes to be corrected. There are currently over
3,300 people in California who have received this alternative sentence, which also has a more
limited appeals process last approximately 3 years. According to the California Governor's
Office, only seven people sentenced to life without parole have been released since the state
provided for this option in 1977, and this occurred because they were able to prove their
innocence.
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Is “Death Penalty” a cruel murderer or a just punishment?
Beside teenage pregnant, bribery, education and so on, death penalty is also a controversial
issue in society. While many people argue that the death penalty intends to a cruel murder,
others say this penalty is a just punishment. In my opinion, I strongly in favor of the death
penalty, because it can deterrent to crime and save innocent lives.
Firstly; death penalty is vital to protect innocent victims. The highest punishment for a
murderer or convicted felon of government by death could save thousands of victims. That is
because of death penalty can prevent murderer from never committing another crime again on
any person's right to live. According to a study found that of 11,404 people originally convicted
of homicide and released during 1965 and 1973, 34 were returned to prison for homicide
during the first year alone. Therefore; to protect others government need to eliminate those
who are murderers. Then our environment will be safer and victims who are at stake can live
much more comfortable.
Secondly; most people have a natural fear of death. Thus the death penalty, as a result of
showing power of government, can deterrent to crime. If no murderer is executed, do you think
that the homicide will be very grateful for humanity of law? Is harsh law enough for "willful
murderer"? Or they take advantage of legislation to committing crime? As a result; they will
continue murdering and getting money from killing innocent lives without being afraid of
offending by executing. Maybe capital punishment is not absoluately effective, but at least can
warn "willful murderer" or "felonry" to ponder on his behavior. Nevertheless; argue against
capital punishment believe that the death penalty is ultimate cruel and inhuman murderer.
They support that death penalty is just a degrading punishment by the name of justice, and it
deny the rights to human life. I understand their argument. A life is sacred. And a murderer is a
person. Perhaps many homicides are forced murdering, by social pressure, by circumstances.
However; they cannot deprive life of innocent lives just for themselves. According to Lori
Ornellas essay, she told a story about a 62 year-old grand, Betty Beet, was pleading for life after
murdering the forth husbands. And when she got out of prison early, she murdered the fifth
husband and buried him in her backyard. Is it human? Can we have humane treatment with this
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kind of person? If no one murder, no one is executed. Thus homicide or convicted felon must
pay for his cruel action by his own life.
In conclusion; I strongly agree with death penalty. It is a just not unjust punishment to
murderer and cool-blooded killer. Above all, death penalty guarantee for justice in society and
save innocent lives.
Can “Death Penalty” be a deterrent to crime?
Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action.
Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest
punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are
sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of
losing their own life. Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive,
that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is
actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that
some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than
jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates
would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty. Finally, the death penalty
certainly "deters" the murderer who is executed. Strictly speaking, this is a form of
incapacitation, similar to the way a robber put in prison is prevented from robbing on the
streets. Vicious murderers must be killed to prevent them from murdering again, either in
prison, or in society if they should get out. Both as a deterrent and as a form of permanent
incapacitation, the death penalty helps to prevent future crime.
References
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1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment
2) http://listverse.com/2013/06/01/5-arguments-for-and-against-the-death-penalty/
3) http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002000
4) http://www.deathpenalty.org/section.php?id=13
5) http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts
6) http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/myths-facts/facts
7) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130412-death-penalty-capital-punishment-
culture-amnesty-international/
8) http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/myths-facts
9) http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/history-death-penalty
10) http://www.crimemuseum.org/library/execution/originsOfCapitalPunishment.html
“My Future Plan”
Hello this is Pappu Saha, student of University of Information & Technology Science (UITS). Here
I am completing my graduation that is BBA. I often wonder about my future. The number one
question on my mind is which profession should I choose? It is very hard to make any definite
choices, because I know they will affect me for the rest of my life. I want a profession that will
satisfy me, challenge me, and bring me joy. I believe that a job should be like a hobby. I want to
love my work, and know that I am making a difference in this world by helping other people. I
am personally interested in becoming a Banker; however, there are many different career
opportunities. You can work in manufacturing, service, agriculture or business. Everyone has to
decide which path is best for him or herself, once they finish their study life. So after finishing
my Graduation I will join for the MBA program & then after completing my MBA program I will
try my level best to join in a Bank to fulfill my dream.