Should the U.S. continue to use capital punishment?

There is a lot of controversy with this question

between the people who support capital punishment and those against it. Some of the main issues with
this question are if it is humane, does it deter crime, is it unconstitutional, and many others.

The use of capital punishment has had little effect in deterring capital crimes which is one of the reasons
states use it. The states in the U.S. that still have the death penalty continue to have high rates of
murder or capital crimes. According to the article Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty by Kathy Gill, in
2000 Texas was ranked thirteenth in the U.S. for violent crimes and seventeenth for murders per
100,000 citizens. They were also the leader in death penalty convictions and executions.

There is no reputable study done that confirms capital punishment is a deterrent against murder or
other capital crimes. A murderer is not going to think that they will get caught or what will happen to
them after they commit the crime. A study done in 2008 by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock
of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the
death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime.

For most states life in prison without parole has been put in place of capital punishment. This is not a
deterrent either but it is a better alternative. There truly is no current deterrent for crime except for
the person committing the crime. The article Death Penalty Does Not Reduce Homicide Rate posted on
dallasnews.com website included a sentence that sums up the effect capital punishment has on crime:
The only murders the death penalty unarguably deters are those that might have been committed by the
executed.