g methods (18) states lethal injection, (14) electrocution, (7) lethal gas, (2) hanging and (2) firing squad.4 These methods of execution compared to those of the past are not meant for torture, but meant for punishment for the crime. For the past decades capital punishment has been one of the most hotly contested political issues in America. This debate is a complicated one. Capital punishment is a legal, practical, philosophical, social, political, and moral question. Americans seem to be of two minds about the death penalty. 5 In the last several years, executions have risen steeply, reaching a 50-year high. 6 Two-thirds of the public support the penalty. 7 Two-thirds support, however, represents a steady decline from the four-fifths of the population that supported the penalty only six years ago, leaving support for capital punishment at a 20-year low. 8 When life without parole is proposed as an alternative, support for the penalty drops even more often below a majority. 9 The notion of deterrence has been at the very center of the practical debate over the question of capital punishment. Most of us assume that we execute murderers primarily because we believe it will discourage others from becoming murderers. Proponents of capital punishment have long asserted the deterrent power of capital punishment as an obvious fact. The fear of death deters people from committing crimes. Still, abolitionists (people against capital punishment) believe that deterrence is little more than an assumption-and a naive assumption at that. Abolitionists claim that capital punishment does not deter murderers from killing or killing again. They base most of their argument against deterrence on statistics. States that use it extensively show a higher murder rate than those that have abolished the death penalty. Also, states that have abolished the death penalty and then re-instituted it show no significant change in the murder rate. They say adj...
