Instead, he introduced the idea of making the punishment for a crime proportionate the crime that was committed. This idea was taken seriously and systems of punishment began to include taking away one's freedom or, in other words, incarceration and adding the concept of rehabilitation of the offender to the goal of the criminal justice system (Banks 2005)
In 1791, the United States upon becoming a union passed the Bill of Rights which included the Eighth Amendment which banned "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Eighth Amendment. Interestingly, at that time in history, hanging was not seen as cruel or unusual punishment (Banner, 2002)
1). Despite substantial public outcry in support of granting him clemency and despite all the people he helped deter from gang affiliation in recent years, he was executed in December of 2005, for committing the crimes he did prior to his change in heart and contribution to humanity (Finch, 2005)
In fact, they even went a step further: torture was used for hundreds of years as the means of capital punishment. Torture involved several different kinds of killing and was so gruesome that people referred to the laws allowing it as the "Bloody Code" (Levinson, 2002)
J., "It [capital punishment] contaminates the otherwise good will which any human being needs to progress in love and understanding" (Schroth, 2008)
Toward the end of his life, he apologized for his role in the creation of the Crips and for the numerous crimes that he committed -- many of which included the murder and assault of innocent human beings. Moreover, in the last decade of his life, he authored many books professing the dangers of belonging to a gang and helped to influence many young people that violence was not the answer (Van Slambrouck, 2000, p
). Arguments in Support of Capital Punishment Proponents of capital punishment state believe that it provides a deterrent to crime, retribution for heinous crimes, and a cost-effective alternative to housing depraved convicted felons for his or her entire life (Wilson, 2009)
Such studies ignore the fact that urbanized states are more likely to have higher crime rates and the less urbanized states are often the ones without capital punishment laws. (Lowe, 2006) the deterrent effect of capital punishment on murders is more accurately reflected in the co-relation between the actual number of executions and the murders committed in the U
Furthermore, both the 14th Constitutional Amendment and the 5th Constitutional Amendment set forth the protection of due process of law and that concept is applied equally to all persons through the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (Zalman, 2008). The argument against the death penalty based in constitutional law is that there is substantial empirical evidence documenting the extent to which it has been applied unequally against minority defendants charged with crime and against convicted offenders who are members of racial minorities (Dershowitz, 2002)
Specifically, the 8th Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual" punishment (Dershowitz, 2002; Zalman, 2008). According to the available evidence, lethal injection -- the statutory method of application of capital punishment in most American states) -- is subject to medical error in a significant number of cases (Kaveny, 2008)
More specifically, that conclusion arises from two types of crime rate comparison in connection with the frequency of death penalty-eligible crimes before and after changes in state law to adopt (or eliminate) capital punishment and in connection with comparative rates of similar crimes in neighboring states where one state maintains capital punishment statutes and the other state does not. Those data indicate that the incidence of death penalty eligible crimes (in states with the death penalty) and of the same types of crimes (in states without the death penalty) are entirely unaffected by whether or not capital punishment is a possible consequence of specific offenses (Lynch, 1999; Nagin, 1998)
In principle, it guarantees that all persons receive the same treatment under the law and that the consequences of violating penal laws are not variable based on the identity or any element of individual status of persons charged with or convicted of statutory violations (Zalman, 2008). Moreover, the legislative history of the 14th Constitutional Amendment that embodies the notion of equal protection reveals that it was necessitated in the first place precisely because both civil and penal laws were being applied unequally against minority races, and in particular, against the newly-freed slaves in the Reconstruction Era after the War between the States (Schmalleger, 2009)
On balance, there does not appear to be a justification for maintaining capital punishment within the framework of a modern society that respects human life and that protects the rights of all citizens equally. Argument Number 1 -- The Unconstitutionality of Unequal Application and Cruelty In the United States, the concept of equal protection under the law has been one of the most important elements of the constitutional protections since its enactment by Congress in 1866 (Zalman, 2008)
Indeed, this is even clearer in other areas. Notably, Texas, which is now famous for its wanton use of the death penalty in criminal cases, provides an excellent example in that the city Dallas, which has "has sent dozens of people to death row" has not ever given anyone the death penalty "for killing an African-American" (Cockburn and St
One of the central issues regarding punishment was even debated in Ancient Greece reviewing the rights of the individual (for them, male property owners). Crime was dealt with swiftly and severely, while there was due process of a sort, it is clear that the deterrence for major crimes -- death or death by torture, was enough to keep crime at bay (Dargie, 2007)
Punishment is seen as a penalty inflicted on an individual through some sort of organized, society, or judicial procedure after being duly convicted of a crime to that society. Crime is seen as any sort of act that has been banned or forbidden by that society's laws that causes harm to an individual or society as a whole (Gibbs, 1975)
Deterrence, or societal ways of inhibiting crime by fear of punishment, is based on the 18th century Enlightenment idea that as calculation and rational creatures, humans will not break the law if they think that the pains of punishment outweigh the pleasures of crime. This method of punishment serves two purposes: to deter the individual from committing the crime because they fear the punishment associated with the criminal act, and to deter future criminals because they see the effects of the criminal act when the perpetrator is punished (Macionis, 2006)
g. robbing a bank with a firearm, murder, or a white collar crime like embezzlement) (Siegel, 2008)
In principle retribution calls for the punishment to be as severe the crime committed. While this can be perceived as an equal punishment, opponents of this view argue it is just a small step above barbarism, and it does not help to reform the criminal which can lead to recidivism (Wilker and Sarat, 1998)
It is also important to note that Cassell ends up distorting some facts by making hasty generalizations. For instance, he argues against the abolishment of the death penalty by claiming that "no death penalty is ever imposed unless the jury (or in some states, a judge) decides that the ultimate penalty is justified by the facts of the case" (Cassell, 2008)