Death Penalty

Public opinion on capital punishment in America over the past 50 years has fluctuated tremendously. Support was fairly low through the 1950's, and in 1966 only 47% of the American public voiced their support. Since 1982, about 75% of the population has favored capital punishment, with a slow decline in recent years (Gillespie 1999). The arguments surrounding the death penalty today, compared to 25 years ago, rely less on issues such as deterrence and cost, and more on grounds of legal fairness and competence, as well as retribution. The public has been misinformed due to the lack of substantial evidence that discredit capital!.
             punishment as an effective deterrent, as well as a competent system in accurately sentencing criminals. In light of recent studies and technological innovations that illuminate the incompetence of the court system, if the United States does not reform its current death penalty laws, countless individuals will continue to be stripped of their right to a fair trial, and a dramatic decrease in public support of the death penalty will occur.
             In the early 1970's, the chief argument in favor of the death penalty was its assumed deterrence of crime. In theory, publicized executions should result in a lower number of homicides, therefore serving as a deterrent to crime. Today, there are widespread agreements among both criminologists and law enforcement officials that capital punishment has little curbing effect on crime rates. In a recent survey of 70 current and former presidents of three professional associations of criminologists (the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association), 85% of the experts agreed that empirical research on deterrence has shown that the death penalty "never has been, is not, and never could be superior to long prison sentences as a deterrent to criminal violence" (Radelet and Borg 2000).