save: murderers and innocent
victims in the future
lose: convicted murderer
save: nothing affected
lose: convicted murderer
save: convicted murderer
lose: innocent victims in the
future
save: convicted murderer
lose: nothing affected
Following this table, Conway assumes (after Van den Haag’s suggestion that the life of a convicted murderer is not valued more highly than that of the unknown victims) numerical values about each case (each numerical number stands for not a number of people but a hypothetical value for a person to be saved or killed) :
a murderer saved +5
a murderer executed -5
an innocent saved +10
an innocent murdered -10
Moreover, he assumes that for each execution, only two innocent lives are spared (i.e. he assumes the deterrent effect to be almost the minimum). Then, consequently, executing convicted murderers turns out to be a good bet (Conway 1995, pp. 265-266; Pojman 1998, pp. 40-41).
9. Negative causation and where to give priority
Van den Haag’s ‘Best Bet Argument’ sounds quite interesting. However, Conway has already proposed a fundamental challenge to this argument: it mistakenly regards the actual death of convicted murderers as being on a par with the possible death of innocent victims in the future (Conway 1995, pp. 269-270). This is confusing or possibly a rhetorical sleight of hand. I think that Conway’s reaction to Van den Haag’s argument is a reasonable one.
As I approach my conclusion, I will propose two problems with Van den Haag’s argument. First, I want to acknowledge that any arguments, including Van den Haag’s, supporting the death penalty in terms of its deterrent effect seem to presuppose a causal relationship between the existence of the death penalty and people not killing others. For example, Pojman writes, ‘the repeated announcement and regular exercise of capital punishment may have deep causal influence’ (1998, p. 48). However, epistemologically speaking, that presupposition is extremely hard to confirm, because the effect of this causal relationship is not a positive, but rather a negative event, which is the event of not killing others. This has something to do with the philosophical problem of how to understand negative properties. By negative properties we mean that, for example, my room is not full of seawater; my room does not consist of paper; my room is not melting us, etc. Such descriptions by negative properties can be made almost endlessly. In other words, one identical event described by a positive property (e.g., this room is well lit) can be re-described in infinite ways in terms of negative properties. Take the example that I am now at my computer in Tokyo, writing a paper. This event can also be described as ‘I am not eating’, ‘I am not sleeping’, ‘I am not killing others’ (!), etc. The positive event, ‘I am writing a paper now’, can be understood through a causal relationship. The event was most likely caused by my intention to do so, which was caused by my sense of duty as a professor, etc. How, then, could we understand the negative description of my action, ‘I am not killing others’? Was this caused by the existence of the death penalty in Japan?
Perhaps I was completely unaware of the existence of the death penalty in Japan when I wrote a paper without killing others. Could the death penalty be its cause? Could the negative event ‘I am not killing others’ be an effect of the death penalty? It is hard to say so.
This problem is the same as the problem of ‘causation by absence’ or ‘omission-involving causation’. Generally, causation by absence is usually examined in the form of answering a question about whether nothingness can cause something. For example, David Lewis discusses a question about how a void (understood as being entirely empty or nothing at all, differing from a vacuum) is regarded as a cause of something (Lewis 2004). He says, ‘If you were cast into a void, it would cause you to die in just a few minutes. It would suck the air from your lungs. It would boil your blood. It would drain the warmth from your body. And it would inflate enclosures in your body until they burst’ (ibid., p.277). However, the problem is that the void is nothing. ‘When the void sucks away the air, it does not exert an attractive force on the air’ (ibid.). Furthermore, another, perhaps harder problem would arise. We can say, ‘If I defended you from being cast into a void, you would not die’. Namely, my omission to defend you would cause you to die. However, should only my omission matter? What of your brother’s omission to defend you? Or the Prime Minister of the UK’s omission to defend you? Are not all of those qualified to be the cause of your death, as least as long as we adopt a common-sense counterfactual analysis of causation? As this argument suggests, in the context of the current debate on this problem, the most troublesome phase is that ‘too many’ absences can be supposed to cause a particular effect. I quote Menzies, who says (2004, p.145):
I am writing this essay at my computer. If, however, there were nerve gas in the air, or I were attacked with flamethrowers, or struck by a meteor shower, I would not be writing the essay. But it is counterintuitive to say that the absence of nerve gas, flamethrower attack, and meteor strike are causes of my writing the essay.
This example takes the issue of absence as a cause, but simultaneously his example refers to the case of effect as absence (not writing the essay). As this shows, the current debate on the problem of causation by absence could extend to the case of effect as absence. In any case, what matters is a possibility that ‘too many’ absences can cause something, and something can cause ‘too many’ absences (Menzies calls this problem ‘the problem of profligate causation’ (ibid., pp.142-145). Then the deterrent effect of the death penalty is definitely classified as a case of absence as effect rather than cause. In other words, the absence of homicide (as effect) matters, whereas in this case execution (as cause) is presupposed to exist. It seems that the current debate on causation by absence is highly likely to contribute to discussing the problem of the deterrent effect.
Of course, someone may counter my argument by saying that what matters in this context is a statistical correlation between the number of executions and the number of homicides, which could be confirmed in an empirical way. I admit that the statistical correlation plays a crucial role here, even though we must simultaneously acknowledge that what is called ‘randomized controlled trial’, the most reliable, statistical methodology to confirm causal relations, is unfeasible due to the nature of the problem. Actually, this kind of correlation is too rough to predict the causal relationship between those, although the causation really matters. Causes of a reduction or increase in the number of homicides can be interpreted or estimated in various ways, considering confounding factors, such as education, economic situation, urban planning, and so on. Therefore, in principle, there always remains the possibility that the apparent correlation between the death penalty and the reduction of homicides is merely accidental. For example, there may be another, common cause, that brings about both people’s tendency to support the death penalty and the reduction of homicides 9 . We should recognise that there is intrinsic uncertainty here. These difficulties concerning causal relations give rise to a fourth problem related to the death penalty debates – the Uncertainty of Causal Consequences.
Incidentally, let me now return to my distinction of the three stages regarding the death penalty. Obviously, the issue of the deterrent effect belongs primarily to the Danger Stage. Yet it is vital to consider the Harm Stage. How can the deterrent effect affect the Harm Stage? I must say that the retentionist’s argument, in terms of the deterrent effect of the death penalty, completely dismisses this essential point. We need only recall the analogy of the 2011 quake in Japan. ‘Retentionism’ based upon the deterrent effect corresponds to aspect (3), where the improvement of the preventive system matters. This is important, of course, but cannot be a priority. Priority lies in the issues of how to deal with the actual harm that the victims have already suffered (specifically referring to the bereaved family or others in the case of homicide and the death penalty). Without consideration of how to cope with the harm, even if the theory seriously considers the innocent victims in the future, the retentionists’ theory can hardly be persuasive.
It is true that the retentionists’ theory based on the deterrent effect appropriately considers the person harmed in the process of punishment. For example, Walker considers such a phase in the process of punishment as one of the possible objections against retentionism based on the deterrent effect by saying: ‘if the benefit excludes the person harmed this too is nowadays regarded by many people as morally unacceptable’ (Walker 1980, p. 65). However, as the context clearly shows, by ‘the person harmed’ he means the person punished. He does not mention the initial harm suffered by victims. This problem is concerned with my previous claim; that is, we have to consider the ‘whom-question’ when we discuss the justification of punishment. Whom are we discussing? Whose benefit do we consider? In the face of victims before our eyes, can we emphasise only the improvement of preventive systems for the future? Evidently, actual victims are the first to be helped, although obviously it is not at all bad to simultaneously consider the preventive system in the future. It is necessary for us to respect basic human rights and the human dignity of perpetrators and innocent people in the future; however, that respect must be in conjunction with our first taking care of actual victims. We ought not to get our priorities wrong.
10. Prospects
I have indicated that the debates on the death penalty are inevitably surrounded by four problems over specific kinds of uncertainties: uncertainty concerning the victim of homicide, uncertainty in justifying the death penalty from the feeling of being victimised, uncertainty in justifying the death penalty on the basis of human rights, and uncertainty over negative causation. In the course of examining these problems, I have proposed the option of developing an ‘impossibilist’ position about the death penalty, which I am convinced, deserves further investigation. However, being surrounded by theoretical problems and uncertainties might be more or less true of any social institution. My aim is only to suggest how the death penalty should be understood as involving uncertainties from a philosophical perspective. Most likely, if there is something practical that I can suggest based on my argument, then what we might call a ‘Harm-Centred System’ may be introduced as a relatively promising option instead of, or in tandem with, the death penalty. What I mean by this is a system in which we establish as a priority redressing actual harm with regard to legal justice, where ‘actual harm’ only implies what the bereaved family suffer from, as the direct victims have already disappeared in the case of homicide. In other words, I think that something akin to the maximalist approach to restorative justice 10 or some hybrid of the traditional justice system and the restorative justice system should be seriously considered, although we cannot expect perfect solutions exempt from all of the above four problems. It is certainly worth considering whether some element of restorative justice can play a significant role in the best theory of punishment.
In any case, my argument is at most a philosophical attempt to address problems. How to apply it to the practice of the legal system is a question to be tackled in a future project.
Bazemore, G. and Walgrave, L. 1999 (1). ‘Introduction: Restorative Justice and the International Juvenile Justice Crisis’. In Restorative Juvenile Justice: Repairing the Harm of Youth Crime , eds. G. Bazemore and L. Walgrave, Criminal Justice Press, 1-13.
———. 1999 (2). ‘Restorative Juvenile Justice: In Search of Fundamentals and an Outline for System Reform’. In Restorative Juvenile Justice: Repairing the Harm of Youth Crime , eds. G. Bazemore and L. Walgrave, Criminal Justice Press, 45-74.
Beyleveld, D. 1979. ‘Identifying, Explaining and Predicting Deterrence’. British Journal of Criminology 19:3, 205–224.
Calvert, B. 1993. ‘Locke on Punishment and the Death Penalty’. Philosophy 68:264,, 211–229.
Collins, J., N. Hall, and L. A. Paul. 2004. Causation and Counterfactuals. MIT Press.
Conway, D. A. 1995 (originally 1974). ‘Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Considerations in Dialogue Form’. In Punishment: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader , eds. J. Simmons, M. Cohen, J. Cohen, and C. R. Beitz. Princeton University Press, 261–273.
Diogenes Laertius. 1925. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 2. Trans. R. D. Hicks. Loeb Classical Library. William Heinemann Ltd.
Ehrlich, I. 1975. ‘The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death’. American Economic Review 65:3, 397–417.
Fagan, A. 2016. ‘Human Rights’. In Chase B. Wrenn, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002. Available from http://www.iep.utm.edu/hum-rts/#H2 [Accessed 12 June 2017]
Fischer, J. M., ed. 1993. The Metaphysics of Death . Stanford University Press.
Goldman, A. H. 1995 (originally 1979). ‘The Paradox of Punishment’. In Punishment: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader , eds. J. Simmons, M. Cohen, J. Cohen, and C. R. Beitz. Princeton University Press, 30–46.
Hart, H. L. A. 1982. Essays on Bentham: Jurisprudence and Political Theory . Oxford University Press.
Ichinose, M. 2013. ‘Hybrid Nature of Causation’. In T. Uehiro, Ethics for the Future of Life: Proceedings of the 2012 Uehiro-Carnegie-Oxford Ethics Conference , the Oxford Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, 60-80.
———. 2016. ‘A Philosophical Inquiry into the Confusion over the Radiation Exposure Problem’. Journal of Disaster Research 11: No.sp, 770-779.
Lewis, D. 2004. ‘Void and Object’. In J. Collins, N. Hall, and L. A. Paul, Causation and Counterfactuals . MIT Press, 277–290.
Locke, J. 1960. Two Treatises of Government , ed. P. Laslett, Cambridge University Press.
———. 1975. An Essay concerning Human Understanding , ed. P. H. Nidditch. Oxford University Press.
Menzies, P. 2004. ‘Difference-Making in Context’. In J. Collins, N. Hall, and L. A. Paul, Causation and Counterfactuals . MIT Press, 139–180.
Pojman, L. P., and J. Reiman. 1998. The Death Penalty: For and Against. Rowman &Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Scanlon, T. M. 1982. ‘Contractualism and utilitarianism’. In A. Sen and B. Williams, Utilitarianism and Beyond . Cambridge University Press, 103-128.,
Simmons, A. J. 1994. ‘Locke on the Death Penalty’. Philosophy 69:270, 471–477.
Strawson, G. 2008. ‘The Impossibility of Ultimate Moral Responsibility’. In Real Materialism. Oxford University Press, 319–331.
Tonry, M. 1994. ‘Proportionality, Parsimony, and Interchangeability of Punishments’. In A Reader on Punishment , eds. A. Duff and D. Garland. Oxford University Press, 133–160.
Van den Faag, E. 1995 (originally 1969). ‘On Deterrence and the Death Penalty’. In Punishment and the Death Penalty: The Current Debate , eds. R. M. Baird and S. E. Rosenbaum. Prometheus Books.
Von Hirsch, A. 1993. Censure and Sanctions. Oxford University Press.
Walen, A, 2015. ‘Retributive Justice’. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Available from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/justice-retributive/ [Accessed 12 June 2017]
Walker, N. 1980. Punishment, Danger and Stigma: The Morality of Criminal Justice . Barnes & Noble Books.
1. Strangely, few Locke scholars have seriously tried to understand the Lockean meaning of punishment, which is developed in his Second Treatise ,(Locke 1960), in the light of his theory of personal identity based upon ‘consciousness’, which is discussed in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding . Taking into account the fact that ‘person’ appears as the key word in both works of Locke, we must bridge the gap between his two works by rethinking the universal significance of ‘person’ in his arguments. There were, however, some controversies concerning how Locke evaluates the death penalty. See Calvert (1993) and Simmons (1994).
2. There is an additional question about whether justification is needed after the execution when the convict is no longer around, in addition to ‘before’ and ‘during’. According to my understanding of justification, the process of justification must begin with making each person concerned understand what there is no reason to reject, but that is just a starting, necessary point. Justification must go beyond the initial phase to acquiring general consent from society. In this sense, justification seems to be needed even ‘after’ the execution. Actually, if there is no need for justification after the execution, that sounds less like punishment based on a system of justice than merely physical disposal.
3. Is it true that the death penalty is the ultimate punishment? Can we not suppose that the death penalty is less harmful than a life sentence or very lengthy incarceration? However, this view regarding the death penalty as less harmful than a lifelong sentence could lead to a paradox. If this order of severity as punishment is valid, it may be possible to reduce the lifelong sentence (due to an amnesty, some consideration on the prisoner’s rehabilitation, or something like that) to the death penalty. If this is the case, prisoners given the lifelong sentence will not make an effort at all to rehabilitate themselves, due to fear of the sentence being reduced to the death penalty. In addition, if a person is likely to be sentenced to death, the person might try to commit a more heinous crime, perhaps even in the court in order to be given a more severe sentence, i.e. a life sentence in prison. That is a paradox drawn from human nature.
4. On the current debates on ‘HTD’ of Epicurus, see Fischer (1993). Of course, there are lots of objections against the Epicurean view. The most typical objection is that death deprives people of their chance to enjoy life, and therefore death is harmful. However, it seems to me that “whom-question” must be raised again here. To whom is the deprivation of this chance harmful? In any case, the metaphysics of death is a popular topic in contemporary philosophy, which should involve not only metaphysical issues but also ethical and epistemological problems.
5. In fact, the hardships suffered by those forced to flee to shelters constituted the main problem resulting from the nuclear power plants accident. In general, radiation exposure is the most well-known problemarising from nuclear power plant accidents, but it is not always the case. In particular in the case of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan, the overestimation of the danger of radiation exposure, and evacuation activities resulting from that overestimation, caused the biggest and the most serious problems including many of the deaths. We always have to take the risk-tradeoff into account. Radiation exposure is just one risk, and is not the only risk to be considered. See Ichinose (2016).
6. The notion of parsimony was newly offered to avoid a fundamental drawback of the standard retributive system, whether based on cardinal or ordinal proportionality: the standard system tends to inflict excessive, cruel punishment, as its criterion of measuring wrongness is not exempt from being arbitrary. In contrast, the newly offered system could hold inflicted punishment ‘as minimally as possible, consistent with the vague limits of cardinal desert’ (Walen 2015) in terms of introducing an idea of parsimony. The notion of parsimony could make the retributive system of punishment more reasonable and humane while retaining the idea of retribution.
7. Roger Crisp kindly pointed out that it is worth considering an institutional justification according to which punishment wouldn’t have to be tailored to a particular case. In this view, it is sufficient that death is generally bad for both victims and perpetrators. I do not deny the practical persuasiveness of this view. However, from a more philosophical point of view, we should propose a question ‘how can we know that death is generally bad for victims of homicide?’ Following HTD, which is certainly one possible philosophical view, death is not bad at all, regardless of whether we talk about general issues or particular cases, as an agent to whom something is bad or not disappears by dying by definition. Of course, as long as we exclusively focus upon harm which the bereaved family or the society in general suffer, the institutional justification could make good sense, although in that case the issue of direct victims killed would remain untouched.
8. Additionally, my analogy with natural disasters, particularly the case of the 2011 quake, could be re-confirmed to be appropriate in the sense of presenting a similar kind of uncertainty to the case of the death penalty. The danger of constant exposure to low doses of radiation for long periods involves some uncertainty, as far as we now know. Fortunately, however, the dose of radiation to which the people of Fukushima were exposed as a result of the 2011 quake, internally and externally, was low enough for us to be certain, based upon past epidemiological research, that no health problems will arise in the future. Regarding radiation exposure, everything depends upon the level of dose. The smaller the dose, the less dangerous it is.
9. On negative causation and the possibility of common cause, see Ichinose (2013). In particular, my argument on negative causation concerning the death penalty rests on my argument of Ichinose (2013).
10. According to Bazemore and Walgrave, ‘restorative justice is every action that is primarily oriented towards doing justice by repairing the harm that has been caused by a crime (Bazemore and Walgrave 1999 (2), p.48). Restorative justice, that is to say, is a justice system that mainly aims at restoring or repairing the harm of offences rather than punishing offenders as the retributive justice system does. Initially, restorative justice has been carried out by holding ‘a face-to-face meeting between the parties with a stake in the particular offense’ (ibid.) like victim, offenders, or victimised communities. However, this type of justice system works only in a complementary way to the traditional system of retributive justice. Then, the maximalist approach to restorative justice was proposed, which seeks to develop ‘restorative justice as a fully-fledged alternative’(Bazemore and Walgrave 1999 (1). Introduction. P.8) to retributive justice. This approach ‘will need to include the use of coercion and a formalization of both procedures and the relationship between communities and society’ (ibid., p.9.)
Advertisement
Supported by
The rape and murder of a trainee doctor at her own hospital has brought up, once again, uncomfortable truths about a country that wants to be a global leader.
By Anupreeta Das and Sameer Yasir
In December 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student boarded a bus in New Delhi a little after 9 p.m., expecting it would take her home. Instead, she was gang-raped and assaulted so viciously with an iron rod that her intestines were damaged. She died days later as India erupted in rage.
Nearly 12 years later, the nation is convulsing with anger once again — this time, over the ghastly rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in a Kolkata hospital, as she rested in a seminar room after a late-night shift. Since the Aug. 9 killing, thousands of doctors have gone on strike to demand a safer work environment and thousands more people have taken to the streets to demand justice.
For a country desperate to be seen as a global leader, repeated high-profile cases of brutal sexual assaults highlight an uncomfortable truth: India, by many measures , remains one of the world’s most unsafe places for women. Rape and domestic violence are relatively common, and conviction rates are low.
This week, the Supreme Court of India took up the Kolkata case as one of fundamental rights and safety, questioning how hospital administrators and police officers had handled it and saying new protective measures were needed. “The nation cannot wait for another rape and murder for real changes on the ground,” Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said.
Gender-related violence is hardly unique to India. But even as millions of Indian women have joined the urban work force in the past decade, securing their financial independence and helping to fuel the country’s rapid growth, they are still often left to bear the burden of their own safety.
Longstanding customs that both repress women and in many cases confine them to the home have made their safety in public spaces an afterthought. It can be dangerous for a woman to use public transportation, especially at night, and sexual harassment occurs frequently on the streets and in offices. Mothers tell their daughters to be watchful. Brothers and husbands drop their sisters and wives off at work.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in .
Want all of The Times? Subscribe .
IMAGES
COMMENTS
The death penalty or capital punishment is the execution of a criminal by a government as punishment for a crime. In the United States, the death penalty is the most common form of sentence in murder cases. A death penalty essay argues for or against the death penalty. The essay introduction begins with an attention-grabber, followed by ...
Compare and Contrast Essay Topics. Death Penalty Practices Worldwide: How different countries approach capital punishment. ... Introduction Iran leads the death penalty chart, with an incredible number of executions completed in 2011 and the initial ten months of 2012. All around, just China executed more individuals.
83 essay samples found. The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, remains a contentious issue in many societies. Essays on this topic could explore the moral, legal, and social arguments surrounding the practice, including discussions on retribution, deterrence, and justice. They might delve into historical trends in the application ...
5 Death Penalty Essays Everyone Should Know. Capital punishment is an ancient practice. It's one that human rights defenders strongly oppose and consider as inhumane and cruel. In 2019, Amnesty International reported the lowest number of executions in about a decade. Most executions occurred in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt.
Long Essay on Death Penalty 500 Words in English. Long Essay on Death Penalty is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10. Capital punishment, death penalty or execution is considered as the infliction of death upon a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes.
In the July Opinion essay "The Death Penalty Can Ensure 'Justice Is Being Done,'" Jeffrey A. Rosen, then acting deputy attorney general, makes a legal case for capital punishment:
The death penalty is racially divisive because it appears to count white lives as more valuable than Black lives. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 296 Black defendants have been executed for the murder of a white victim, while only 31 white defendants have been executed for the murder of a Black victim.
The death penalty, a highly controversial topic, has ignited passionate debates across societies worldwide. This short argumentative essay seeks to dissect the key arguments for and against the death penalty, exploring its potential deterrence effect, ethical implications, and the complexities of implementing such a grave punishment.
1. Introduction. I n 1976 the Supreme Court decision Gregg v. Georgia (428 U.S. 153) ended the 4-year moratorium on executions that had resulted from its 1972 decision in Furman v.Georgia (408 U.S. 238). In Furman the Court had ruled that the death penalty, as then administered in the United States, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
Arguments against Death Penalty. The first argument against the lethal sentence is a lack of deterrence among criminals. According to Amnesty International Australia (2019), there is no evidence that the prospect of death prevents potential perpetrators. Furthermore, some authorities state that the lethal sentence does not decline the number of ...
Is the death penalty debate really dead? contrasting capital punishment support in Canada and the United States. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 20(1), 536-562. Web. Stetler, R. (2020). The history of mitigation in death penalty cases. Social Work, Criminal Justice, and the Death Penalty, pp. 34-45. Web.
Arguments against the Death Penalty. A. Human rights. One of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is that it violates the right to life as stated in various international human rights conventions. Critics argue that the death penalty is a form of cruel and inhumane punishment, as it involves intentionally taking a person's life.
capital punishment, execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law.The term death penalty is sometimes used interchangeably with capital punishment, though imposition of the penalty is not always followed by execution (even when ...
In the 1600s, the American colonies used the death penalty as a punishment for most serious crimes. By the 1800s, many began to oppose the death penalty because they felt that it was inhumane and unconstitutional. The 1972 U.S. Supreme Court Case Furman v. Georgia deemed the death penalty unconstitutional in it's current state, and found that ...
The Death Penalty Essay Example Introduction . The death penalty is one criminal justice area that has attracted a serious debate about whether or not it should be abolished. The penalty enjoys a strong support from the public as people believe that it serves to deter crime as criminals are afraid of dying just like other humans. However, those ...
Capital punishment has been a debatable issue for decades. Some people believe that the death penalty plays a crucial role in the criminal justice system, while others think that this procedure is highly unethical. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts. 184 writers online.
The death penalty violates the most fundamental human right - the right to life. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The death penalty is discriminatory. It is often used against the most vulnerable in society, including the poor, ethnic and religious minorities, and people with mental disabilities.
Top 10 Pro & Con Arguments. 1. Legality. The United States is one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty, according to Amnesty International. As of Mar. 24, 2021, within the US, 27 states had a legal death penalty (though 3 of those states had a moratorium on the punishment's use).
From that time until 1 November 1987,265 death sentences or resentences have been meted out, all for the crime of murder. One of the condemned, Chol Soo Lee, had his death sentence reversed and was later acquitted of the crime for which he was sent to prison. Four others committed suicide on death row.
The death penalty ensures that some of the society's most vicious criminals; murderers, arsons, etc. are rid off the society for good. The society can therefore continue without fear of there undesirable elements every coming back and causing chaos. From an economic point on view, the cost of maintaining prisoners in the correctional ...
The Introduction to the first edition in 1989 stated that 'no one can embark upon a study of the death penalty without making the commonplace observation that from a philosophical and policy standpoint there appears to be nothing new to be said'. This is still true: the arguments remain essentially the same.
1. Strangely, few Locke scholars have seriously tried to understand the Lockean meaning of punishment, which is developed in his Second Treatise,(Locke 1960), in the light of his theory of personal identity based upon 'consciousness', which is discussed in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding.Taking into account the fact that 'person' appears as the key word in both works of Locke ...
The rape and murder of a trainee doctor at her own hospital has brought up, once again, uncomfortable truths about a country that wants to be a global leader. By Anupreeta Das and Sameer Yasir In ...