Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Political Science capital punishment1 capital punishment1 Capital Punishment: Arguments for Life and Death Capital Punishment is the legal infliction of the death penalty on people convicted of a crime. Today, in modern law, the death penalty is corporal punishment in its most severe form. It is irrevocable: it ends the existence of those punished, instead of temporarily imprisoning them. Few states have both capital punishment and or life imprisonment. Capital punishment is the only corporal punishment applied to adults. The usual alternative to the death penalty is life imprisonment and only applied to the greatest criminals For the past decades, capital punishment has been one of the most contested political issues in America. Capital punishment is not merely or even primarily a legal question. It is a practical and moral question. I don't have any problems with the death penalty, but only if all avenues have been investigated and nothing is questionable. It may be wrong to take a life for a life but no criminals would fear repercussions if there weren’t any. I believe in the concept of "an eye for an eye" and "a tooth for a tooth" because there are always consequences to the things you do. A murder should be no exception. The notion of deterrence has been at the very center of the practical debate over the question of capital punishment. The fear of death or life imprisonment deters people from committing crimes. I believe that the death penalty has a deterrent value because it removes the criminals from society so they will never be able to commit anymore crimes. Also future criminals must understand the consequences of committing a crime, such as the three strikes law where after the third time of any crime, it is lifetime in prison. If they murder once they will do it again and taking the criminals off the streets will make us safer. Abolitionists have long argued that deterrence is little more than an assumption that most murder crimes be rationally deterred by any penalty, including death. They are crimes of passion, committed in moments of intense rage, frustration, hatred, or fear, when the killers aren't thinking clearly of the personal consequences of what they do. I respect the abolitionist’s beliefs, but I still believe in the death penalty’s deterrence value. People are deterred from committing crimes because of punishment and if there are no punishment there is nothing to fear. I believe the serial murderers that continuously kill should be put to death so that no more lives will be lost. If they get away with it, they will think that doing it again won’t matter. I believe in harsh punishments because I know that justice is not done if they get to roam free when another innocent life is hurt. What I fear is criminals who have no fear and continually commit crimes that only have them in jail for a few weeks. I believe these criminals should have to be punished more than this because there is a chance that they will commit some sort of crime again knowing the worse is being in solitude fed by the government and our taxes. If some penalty was applied to them that can bring in fear, it guarantees that they will never commit any crimes again. It is only cruel and unusual punishment to the innocent ones who have to deal with the habitual criminals who commit crime over and over again. Bibliography: By Jennifer C. Honeyman and James R.P. Ogloff Reprinted from Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science the Volume 28: 1 January, 1996 http://www.cpa.ca/ogloff.htm Capital Punishment: Facts and Arguments www-personal.umich.edu The Case Against The Death Penalty by Hugo Adam Bedau http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dppapers/aclu.antidp Word Count: 593
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