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18 Advantages and Disadvantages of the

Death Penalty

The death penalty, or “capital punishment” if one prefers a friendlier

term, is the planned killing of an individual by a government or ruling
entity in response to a crime. It is considered the just punishment for a
person legally convicted of an action which is deemed a safety threat to
society.

Most states in the U.S. which allow for the death penalty due so because
of murder. Capital punishment is a legal penalty at the federal level in
the United States for murder as well, along with treason, espionage,
piracy, certain drug-traf cking offenses, or the attempted murder of a
juror, court of cer, or witness in some situation.

As of 2018, every prisoner under a federal death sentence was convicted

of aggravated murder. There were 63 offenders on “death row” at the
Federal Bureau of Prisons as of September 2018. The U.S. military has a
death penalty as well, and the branches have executed 135 people since
1916. That includes Private Eddie Slovik, who was executed on January 31,
1945 under the conviction of desertion.

There are passionate people on both sides of this debate, so it is

imperative to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of the
death penalty with an open mind whenever possible.

List of the Advantages of the Death Penalty

1. A sentence of life in prison is disproportionate to the capital crime.
Almost all death sentences handed out by the United States or state-
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level justice systems are for aggravated murder. Only two people were on
death row for a non-murder offense when the Supreme Court last ruled
on the validity of the death penalty in 2008. Both inmates were convicted
of the aggravated rate of a child under the age of 13, including Patrick
Kennedy who was sentenced for raping his step-daughter.

“As it relates to crimes against individuals… the death penalty should not
be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken,” wrote
Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2008 when the sentence was overturned. If a
convicted criminal receives life in prison for taking a life, proponents
argue that this is not justice because the outcome is disproportionate to
the action taken.

2. The death penalty can provide a deterrent against violent crime.

When many criminologists de ne deterrence in terms of the death
penalty, they are looking at how the presence of this sentencing can stop
violent acts by preventing someone to commit them in the rst place. It
becomes a value proposition. Do I want to risk my life because I have a
willingness right now to take the life of another? In that circumstance,
88% of criminologists agree that the presence of the death penalty is not
useful.

What we must look at for this advantage is the actual convicted person.
Capital punishment creates an irreversible deterrent that the murderer
will never get the chance to take a life again. It is a form of
incapacitation that helps to protect society by preventing future crime in
this manner.

“Capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments

because people fear death more than anything else,” said Ernest van den
Haag, Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University. “They fear most
death deliberately in icted by law and scheduled by the courts.
Whatever people fear most is likely to deter the most.”

3. It doesn’t need to be carried out with brutality.

The focus of the death penalty in the United States today is focused on
ending life as quickly and as peacefully as possible. That is why the

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process is typically carried out through the use of a lethal injection,

creating a medically-imposed death that involves the least amount of
pain possible.

At various points in history, the death penalty was carried out by

beheading, stoning, cruci xion, electrocution, shooting, or hanging. Saudi
Arabia still carries out sword-based executions, while India, Japan, and
Singapore use hanging. China uses a single shot to the back of the head,
while Indonesia uses a ring squad.

4. The death penalty does not re-victimize the affected family.

There is rightful sympathy or empathy directed toward the family of
someone accused of a capital crime. These people are losing a loved one
because of this legal structure. The family of the victim has also lost
someone as well. The person who does not deserve sympathy is the
criminal who decided to commit the capital act (usually aggravated
murder) in the rst place. When the death penalty is one of the possible
consequences that someone faces for their conduct, then it shields the
family of the victim from another form of victimization.

If given life without parole, there is always the possibility that the
criminal could discuss their side of the case, describe the actions they
took, or issue threats to other members of the family. Capital
punishment eventually stops this issue so that the victim’s family can
feel like they can be safe again.

5. It eliminates the possibility of an escape and future victims.

Drug lord Joaquin Guzman, better known as “El Chapo,” has a long
history of being captured and escaping from maximum security prisons.
In 2001, with the help of guards that he bribed, he escaped in a dirty
laundry cart, and then into the trunk of a waiting Monte Carlo. He hid in
tunnels for days when captured in Mazatlan in 2014. He then escaped
through a tunnel in 2015 out of Mexico’s top-security prison.

When there is a life in prison sentence, then an individual has nothing to

lose with their effort to escape. What can the criminal justice system do
to that person except add more time to their life sentence? By using

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capital punishment, this threat disappears – which means there will be

no future victims either.

6. The application of capital punishment in just ways can limit prison

overpopulation issues.
People are living longer today than arguably at any other time in history.
California’s criminal justice system became so overcrowded with
prisoners that the federal courts had to step in to order changes or risk
letting convicted prisoners loose because there was no room to house
them. The state has the largest death room in the country, and with new
capital convictions happening every month, their prison ran out of room.

There were 750 people on death row in California in 2015, up from 646 in
2006. By managing this process so that it is ef cient, including any
appeals or pleadings which are legally permitted, it becomes possible to
manage the population and limit costs without creating the potential for
harm in the rest of society.

List of the Disadvantages of the Death Penalty

1. It is the ultimate denial of human rights when implemented.
Amnesty International describes the implementation of capital
punishment like this. “The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human
rights,” the organization says. “It is the premeditated and cold-blooded
killing of a human being by the state in the name of justice. It violates
the right to life. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading
punishment. There can never be any justi cation for torture or cruel
treatment.”

The de nition of justice can be a tricky element. How a society chooses

to punish its offenders is more re ective of them than it is the choices
that criminals make. Sparing someone’s life, even if that person took the
life of another, takes vengeance out of the scenario. Being pro-life by
de nition means that one must be for every life.

2. The death penalty can execute someone who is possible innocent.

Ever since the United States reinstated the death penalty after a

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Supreme Court ruling allowed for it as part of the justice system, over
1,400 people have been executed by the state or federal government.
Courts in the U.S. don’t usually entertain a claim of innocence until after
the convicted individual dies of natural causes or goes through with the
execution. There are 15 cases where there is strong evidence to suggest
innocence out of this number, with the latest being Carlton Michael Gary,
who was executed in 2018 by the state of Georgia.

A police statement withheld from the defense indicated that the witness
who identi ed Gary in court was actually asleep at the time and that she
could not describe or identify her attacker. DNA evidence left at the
scene excluded him as well. Improper handling of evidence and a lack of
presentation of other items were also part of the issue, along with a lack
of federal review despite all of these concerns.

Even one innocent person being put to death by the state is too many.

3. The cost to prosecute the death penalty is much higher than other
cases.
When the state of Oklahoma examined the differences in cases where
capital punishment was the desired outcome sought with a conviction
rather than life in prison, the overall cost of pursuing the death penalty
was 3.2 times higher. This data is similar to that found in a review of 15
state studies that looked at the cost of this issue and found that seeking
the death penalty raises the average cost of a case by over $700,000.
Even the most conservative estimates from this information nds that
there is a $110,000 increase in expense.

When you incorporate the time spent on death row, the cost of the
lengthy appeals process in the United States, and the issues with secure
housing, it can cost over $1 million more to proceed with capital
punishment instead of a sentence of life without the possibility of
parole.

4. There may not be any deterrence to crime with the death penalty in
place.
“I know that in practice, the death penalty does more harm than good,”

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said Police Chief James Abbot of West Orange, NJ. “So, while I hang on
to my theoretical views, as I’m sure many of you will, I stand before you
to say that society is better off without capital punishment. Life in prison
without parole in a maximum-security detention facility is the better
alternative.

When examining data between states with and without the death
penalty, there are ve speci c conclusions to draw.

States with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those
without it.
National trends do not impact local decisions by criminals to break
the law, whether the death penalty is present or not.
There is no apparent correlation between the death penalty and
changes in murder rates.
Capital punishment has no discernible effect on the killing of law
enforcement of cials.
The abolition of the death penalty occurs most often in states
where the murder of police of cers is a very low percentage of all
homicides.

In 2014, there were 14,000 murders that took place in the United States,
but there were only 35 executions that took place.

5. It is used to control political messages.

The United States uses the death penalty exclusively for the punishment
of crimes as de ned by legal code and precedent. It is a principle which
is not consistent for other countries in the world. 78% of global
executions because of capital punishment come from just four countries
when excluding China: Iraq, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Some countries, including Sudan and Iran, use the death penalty as a
political tool. It becomes a way to punish political opponents who might
want to take their country in a different direction. There were a total of
2,500 death sentences recorded in 54 countries in 2018, with about
20,000 people currently under sentence around the world at the end of
the year.

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6. Children are sometimes put to death through the use of capital

punishment.
There are at least 97 kids who were put to death by capital punishment
laws in Iran since 1990. Another 145 child executions have happened in
China, the Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen,
Nigeria – and the United States.

Scott Hain, Toronto Patterson, T.J. Jones, Napoleon Beazley, Gerald

Mitchell, Shaka Sankofa, Glen McGinnis, and Steven Roach were all put to
death in the United States for a crime that they committed at age 17.
Sean Sellers was executed when he was 29 for a crime that he
committed when he was 16.

7. There is no going back a er the execution takes place.

When we carry out a death sentence, it is an irreversible sentence. Over
160 people sent to death row in the United States have either been
exonerated of the crime or released because there was direct evidence
of their innocence. Even though a grand jury must indict someone and
then the case and sentencing are both held before another jury in the
U.S., their nding that someone is guilty does not mean the individual is
innocent.

Conservative estimates on the number of innocent people convicted in

the United States suggest that at least 0.4% of convicted criminals are
not guilty of the crimes for which they are accused. If the death penalty
were not in place, then there would be time to reverse an unjust
conviction.

8. The evidence obtained to justify the death penalty is sometimes

tainted.
There are speci c guidelines in the United States today that limit how
and when law enforcement can obtain evidence during questioning. This
structure of protection is not always available around the world. There
are numerous people executed after being convicted during an unfair
trial, often on the basis of evidence or confessions obtained through the
use of torture. Some defendants were not given adequate legal
representation.

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Some countries even use the death penalty as a mandatory punishment

for speci c offenses, which means the judge cannot consider the
circumstances of the crime during the sentencing phase of a trial.

9. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way.

“The weight of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those
with less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds or belonging to a
racial, ethnic, or religious minority,” writes Amnesty International. The
Women Donors Network found that 95% of the elected prosecutors in
the United States are white, and 79% of them are white men. In nine of
the death penalty states, there was not a single elected prosecutor who
came from a minority group.

Professor Katherine Beckett of the University of Washington found that

jurors were 4.5 times more likely to impose a capital punishment
sentence on a defendant who was black compared to a white defendant
in a similar circumstance in an examination of 285 cases.

10. Family members of a victim are adversely impacted by the death

penalty.
The Marquette Law Review found that when family members go through
the capital punishment process after someone they love becomes a
victim, they have higher levels of mental, physical, and behavioral health
problems when compared to when the perpetrator receives a sentence
of life in prison. Although this issue does not happen in every
circumstance, some family members can feel responsible for the fact
that the government is putting this criminal to death.

Proponents would argue that capital punishment provides relief because

it guarantees that person can no longer harm another, but there are
many families who do not feel a sense of satisfaction with this action. If
they are the ones who experience loss, then there should be a way to
provide input for them.

11. There are very few prison escapes that occur, and fewer that involve
violent criminals.
The number of escapes from prison in the United States declined by

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more than 50% between 1998-2013, falling to a rate of 10.5 escapes per
10,000 prisoners in 2013. At the same time, the number of life sentences
handed out by the court system has gone up by 500%. Most of the
incidents that contribute to a prisoner escape come from low-security
situations, like when 16 prisoners walked away from a work site and
another 3 disappeared from a community work center.

Out of all of the reported escapes in 2013, only one inmate from a
secured facility was able to get away.

12. Some people just don’t care.

There are people who will always decide to operate outside of the rules
that society sets for safety and security. These are the criminals that
lter into and out of prison consistently until they end up spending their
life there. Rehabilitation doesn’t work because there is no investment to
be different. The death penalty is not going to stop someone from hurting
another person in this situation because the criminal is living for the
thrill of the moment instead of thinking about their future consequences.

Verdict on the Advantages and Disadvantages of the

Death Penalty
As of May 2019, about 60% of the world’s population lives in a country,
state, or province where the death penalty is a possible outcome for
criminal conduct. There are 56 nations which retain the option for capital
punishment for a variety of crimes, including incidents that do not
include aggravated homicide.

Some countries execute people who are under the age of 18 when the
crime was committed. It is used against those with intellectual or mental
disabilities. There are times when it is applied after an unfair trial in clear
violation of international laws and norms. “The death penalty is a
symptom of a culture of violence,” writes Amnesty International, “not a
solution to it.”

The advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty rely on several

instruments to restrict its use to the most severe situations while

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providing states, provinces, and nations the freedom to implement it as

local populations see t. Whether it is the right or wrong approach is
ultimately up to you to decide.

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