Death Penalty Essays (1276 words) - Capital Punishment, Penology

Death Penalty As much as people complain about the laws in the United States are they strict enough? Are there any penalties for murder that are enough to scare a person away from the crime they are planning to commit? The answer in most cases is no, this is why the death penalty should be used in all states and more often. The death penalty is a cost effective deterrent for the USA's problem of violet criminals. The death penalty has been part of justices systems since the beginning of civilization. It was used as a way to punish criminals for crimes of all types. The law was a lot stricter in history, you could be executed for things such as stealing, being accused of being a witch and many other things. The majority of the executions in history until around the 1830's most countries performed the executions in public. Now there are very few countries that hold public executions but it is not completely unheard of. The methods of execution were also much more cruel. Methods such as burning at the stake, stoning, thrown to animals, thrown from a cliff among other things. If anything, the methods used today are a walk in the park compared to methods used throughout history. When some people think of the death penalty they think that it is wrong for the government to take away this persons life. When you stop to look at the Gulbin - 2 subject it is only fair and in the end it is in the best interest of the country. Every year cold blooded killers are sentenced to life in prison, which is not fair when they sentenced their victim to death. The problem in the USA today is we are not hard enough on our violent criminals. There are to many repeat offenders who could have been stopped the first time the committed a crime. In 1993 criminals on parole committed 84,800 crimes, this included 13,200 murders, 12,900 rapes and 49,500 robberies. Statistics like these shows that some criminals are not effected by the penalties we give them. Criminals have the upper hand in most cases. Around sixty two percent of violent crimes result in death and even less result in jail time. The average person in jail for murder spends just under three years before they are released. These criminals only loose three years of their life while their victims lost all of it. Something is very wrong with these statistics and something like the death penalty should be brought into effect to put an end to it. The death penalty has the potential to be a very effective deterrent. If the death penalty was enforced on a regular basis and at a swifter pace it would have criminals scared stiff. One way to look at it is, how many people would commit a murder if as soon as their victim died they would die. If this were the case not many people would murder unless they also wanted to die. The problem in the US is we take to long to carry out the process. "Commute me or electrocute me, don't drag it out" (Jesse Walter Bishop). The average inmate on death row is there for nine years. This time costs the state massive amounts of money. In those nine Gulbin - 3 years the state has to pay to keep the inmate in prison but in addition they must pay for the countless appeals they inmate carries out. If there was a limit and stricter grounds to place an appeal the death penalty would be a cheap and permanent solution to killers. "The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing light beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safley on their way. We don't have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the light house down" (Hyam Barshay). This quote is showing that even though we can't say how many murders capital punishment has prevented it is still known to help prevent people from killing. Even with all the appeals and jail time, capital punishment is cheaper than life with out parole. On average it costs three million dollars for a life without parole inmate. This costs comes from the thirty four thousand per year for the cell for fifty years and seventy five thousand dollars for the trial. On the other hand it only costs about