Capital Punishment - Injustice of Society.
There has been many controversies in the history of the United Stats, ranging from abortion to gun control, but capital punishment has been one of the most hotly contested issues in recent decades. Today's system of capital punishment is frought with inequalities. The commonly offered arguments for the death penalty are filled with holes. "It was a deterrent. It removed killers. It was the ultimate punishment. It is biblical. It satisfied the public's need for retribution. It relieved the anguish of the victim's family." (Grisham 120) Realistically, imposing the death penalty is expensive and time consuming. Retroactively, it has yet to be proven as a deterrent. Morally is a continuation of the cycle of violence and " degrades all who are involved in its enforcement, as well as its victim." ( Stewart 1 ) The usual alternative to the death penalty is life-long imprisonment.
Perhaps the most frequent argument for capital punishment is that of deterrence. The prevailing thought is that imposition of the death penalty will act to dissuade other criminals from committing violent acts. Numerous studies have been created attempting to prove this belief; however, "all the evidence taken together makes it hard to be confident that capital punishment deters more than long prison terms do." (Cavanagh 4) Going ever father, Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Montgomery based Equal Justice Initiative, has stated that " people are increasingly realizing that the more we resort to killing as a legitimate response to our frustration and anger with violence, the more violent our society becomes We could execute all three thousand people on death row, and most people would not feel any safer tomorrow." (Frame 51) In addition, with the growing humanitarianism of modern society, the number of inmates actually put to death is substantially lower than fif!.