Capital Punishment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Capital punishment - Research Paper ExamplePolitical campaigns, religious leaders, and foreign press make quite a spectacle of how the United States legal system regularly sentences people to die for the crimes they have committed. As such, the United States is a bit of a novelty in the developed world as one of the last hardly a(prenominal) 1st world countries in which the end penalty is non only still legal tho employed in great numbers (Debrevnik, 2004). This short analysis is far too brief to succeed the level of critique that a topic such as the death penalty deserves however, this analysis depart discuss a few of the strengths and weaknesses of the death penalty in its certain form and weigh them against many of its greatest weaknesses to provide the reader with a make iter understanding and sense of moral responsibility with relation to whether or not the death penalty is a net good or a net condemnable in the outlaw justice system and in our society as a whole. It is necessary to maintain that although this author is in favor of the death penalty, there are many serious drawbacks to its application, the high economical costs it entails, and the oftentimes arbitrary nature with which it has been historically employed. Although these concerns are valid, the author maintains that notwithstanding many of the current drawbacks associated with the death penalty, the morality and ethics behind it are still poignant enough to merit its support. From a purely economic standpoint, capital punishment is an extraordinarily expensive form of punishment. As compared with life in prison, the average cost of execution is approximately the same cost to keep a prisoner housed and provide for over 100 years. Currently, the average cost of execution in California exceeds 4 million dollars per criminal executed. Comparatively, the average cost to keep a prisoner housed and fed as well as ensuring comely health care and medicine usually does not exceed $35,000 per year (Semeshenko et al, 2012). At such an exorbitantly high expense, it is clear that choosing capital punishment on the grounds that killing the criminal will someway save the state money over time is entirely illogical. As such, the argument for execution does not hinge on economic savings instead, it hinges upon the Judeo-Christian belief of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In this way, the major supporters of the death penalty believe that certain crimes are so heinous that refilling is not possible. As such, ones life is forfeit for certain crimes if convicted. This further raises the tangential do of the purpose of prison whether it is it to rehabilitate or to punish. According to death penalty activists, prisons old objective is to punish with rehabilitation being a very distant second. A secondary add with the death penalty in its current form is that they death penalty has been proven not to be a significant deterrent against the crimes it punishes. Wit h the United States being a prime example, it is obvious that murder rate in the United States are comparably higher than almost any other nation that soon does not have the death penalty as a legal option for a convicted criminal. Accordingly, the death penalty cannot be seen as adequate deterrent to dissuade would-be criminals from committing crime however, it can be seen as a barometer of a societys overall tolerance for violent crime and the clear and