The Death Penalty Research Paper

This form of punishment for crimes can be dated as far back as 1750 BC in the Hammurabi Code. Ever since the fall of Rome into the beginning of this modern era, the death penalty has remained and its practice has continued throughout Western Europe and round the world (Hood & Hoyle, 2015). The first death sentence in the world occurred din the 16th century BC in Egypt where a member of nobility was accused of magic and ordered to take his own life. Non-nobilities in their period were often killed with an ax. Over the years, there has been a very heated debate regarding to whether the death penalty is ethical or whether it should be abolished. In addition, another research by the University of Colorado claimed that five more lives can be saved by one execution while commuting of a death sentence leads to the saving of five more lives (Hood & Hoyle, 2015).

This is based on the reasoning that when the cost of doing something becomes very high, then the people will be forced to change their behavior in order to avoid these costs. However, the reduction of these costs will make the people indulge in it more. They further state that according to a research, when Illinois state suspended executions in the year 200, there was in increase in homicides in the state by an extra 150% over the following four years. The second reason why death penalty continues being used is because it allows the state the exact appropriation retribution which argues that a criminal must face the consequences of his/her actions. Regarding this apparently, illogical argument, the death penalty proponents argue that since bad things happen to bad people, the necessary concomitant is that good things happen to good people (Canes-Wrone, Clark & Kelly, 2014).

This is according to Japanese psychologists are for the death penalty. Japan is a country that faces a lot of homicides and also has one of the highest rates of executions. Proponents of the death penalty in the United States find this argument very interesting and that it can be applied din the United States. Proponents of death penalty also argue that since the standard of proof required for death penalty cases is very high in addition to the fact that the death penalty juries take their responsibilities very seriously, then the risk of wrongly sentencing an individual to death is minimized. However, this was already too late, Mr. Willingham was already dead. Secondly, the death penalty is not an effective deterrent for crimes.

While many advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crimes, many scientific researchers have concluded that it lacks the deterrent effect. According to a recent statement but the general assembly of the United Nations “there is no conclusive evidence of the deterrent value of the death penalty”. Apart from the fact that many countries have aborted the death penalty, public opinion also is against the practice. Many people have increasingly oppose the fact that taking away the life of a human is wrong and it doesn’t matter who does it, not even the state. Analysis Based on the evidence it is clear that the death penalty is a practice whose time has passed and it should be totally abolished.

The purpose of the criminal justice system is to ensure that offenders are punished for their offences and to deter others from committing crimes in order to ensure that safety of people. There are countries that still use the death penalty for homicide. While the proponents if the death penalty argues that an offenders should get a punishment of the same measure, this is not an effective way because it does not amount to justice but equals to revenge. In addition, it does not bring healing but shifts the pain from the family of the murdered individual to the family of the one executed (Bishop, & Osler, 2016). Thus, this clearly is not justice but revenge. Furthermore, any society that commits the same brutal act of executing offenders is committing the same violence that it condemns.