Table of ContentsSo, where is capital punishment legal in the United States and has it proven effective in deterring crime?What are the flaws in capital punishment system? that make it unjust and cruel?Is life imprisonment without parole a more beneficial alternative to capital punishment?Conclusion:Recently, I watched "The Exonerees", and I noticed that there was several problems regarding capital punishment. Capital punishment, which is the legal execution of a prisoner, is another expression of the death penalty. To learn more about capital punishment and how the issues raised in the film apply to our current society in the United States, I decided to do my research report on it. My hypothesis is: “Capital punishment is an unjust and cruel system that should be abolished in the United States. » My three key questions to prove my hypothesis are: Where is capital punishment legal in the United States and has it been shown to be effective in deterring crime? What are the flaws in the capital punishment system that make it unjust and cruel? Is life in prison without the possibility of parole a more beneficial alternative to capital punishment? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay So where is capital punishment legal in the United States and has it been shown to be effective in deterring crime? The Sun article entitled “On death row: which US states still apply the death penalty?” states that capital punishment is legal in 28 states, and that it has been abolished in 22 states since it became legal in the United States. He also states that there has been a decline in support for capital punishment over the years. According to Gallup, public support for the death penalty has fallen dramatically, from 80% in the mid-1990s to just 55% in 2020. This data gives me relief and hope that our society recognizes the flaws of the death penalty. the system of capital punishment and it will soon be abolished in all states of the United States. A report by the American Civil Liberties Union titled “The case against the death penalty” states: “The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control. ". When asked to rank the most effective crime reduction methods, police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least effective in terms of deterrence. They said the most effective factors in reducing crime rates were "reducing drug use and the number of police officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control." This demonstrates that the death penalty has not had a significant impact on deterring crime in the United States. The most common argument in favor of the death penalty is that the threat of execution has a greater impact on criminal behavior than incarceration. I disagree with this argument because the vast majority of capital offenses are committed under extreme emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol when rational thinking is impaired. This means that violence is often carried out by those who are unaware of the implications for themselves and others, implying that the threat of execution does not influence their decision to commit violent crimes. Furthermore, given that the majority of capital crimes are committed in the heat of the moment, it is difficult to see how the threat of any punishment could deter an unpremeditated offense. I think all this informationclearly show that capital punishment does not solve the crime problem in America. States where the death penalty is legal do not have lower criminal homicide rates than states where the death penalty is illegal. Between 2000 and 2010, states that practiced capital punishment had rates 25 to 46 percent higher than states that did not. The author claims that this is explained by the fact that “the return to the exercise of the death penalty weakens the social bases” inhibitions against the use of deadly force to settle disputes. Although the death penalty guarantees that the convicted prisoner will not commit any additional crimes, there is no evidence that it has a deterrent effect on society. All of this evidence reveals that the most popular argument for the death penalty is flawed, as it has shown no effectiveness in deterring crime in the United States. This leads me to wonder if the death penalty does not deter crime, what is another valid reason as to how it positively affects society? I believe that the millions of dollars paid for these executions should be allocated to different areas that would benefit and improve the criminal justice system in the United States. By abolishing the death penalty, more time and money could be spent addressing the root causes of crime, such as mental health, housing, access to education and employment opportunities at home. long term. This information helps further prove my hypothesis that "capital punishment is an unjust and cruel system that should be abolished in the United States" because once these issues are addressed, it would help create safer communities and possibly prevent future crimes. The capital punishment system that makes it unjust and cruel? A report from the Equal Justice Initiative titled “Death Penalty” states: “The death penalty in America is a flawed and costly policy, defined by bias and error.” This source is reliable because it contains relevant information and it is an official government website. The author claims that the death penalty system in the United States treats the rich and the guilty better than the disadvantaged and the innocent. I agree with this statement because the quality of a defendant's legal team is the primary factor in determining whether or not he or she will be sentenced to death, and hiring an effective attorney is expensive. Since most defendants facing the death penalty cannot afford to hire an attorney, they are assigned attorneys who are typically overworked, underpaid, and inexperienced in death penalty cases. Few U.S. states provide sufficient funding for capital defense attorneys, meaning there is a critical lack of resources for investigations and expert assistance. This means that these public defenders often fail to conduct thorough investigations, call witnesses, and challenge forensic evidence, resulting in large numbers of innocent people being sentenced to death. Since 1973, 1,532 people have been executed in the United States, and 183 inmates have been exonerated and freed from their death sentences. This shows that for every nine people executed, one person sentenced to death is innocent. Not having adequate funding for capital defense attorneys, I find, is a fixable excuse. I believe that insufficient funding for capital defense attorneys is an unacceptable reason why innocent people are placed on death row. I also believe this reflects the fact that humanity prioritizes the wrong things. InIndeed, these innocent prisoners are subject to long-term physiological damage, which could have been avoided if our society had prioritized improving the broken justice system in the United States. This article also states that "people of color are more likely to be prosecuted for capital murder, sentenced to death, and executed, especially if the victim in that case is white." The author claims that the death penalty in America is a "direct descendant of lynching." I agree with this because similarly, an article written by Emmaline Soken-Huberty titled “5 Reasons Why the Death Penalty is Wrong” states: “When researchers dig deeper, they find patterns of discrimination based on race.” Emmaline explains that although black people make up only 13% of the American population, they represent more than 40% of prisoners on death row. I think all of this information clearly shows that the capital punishment system in the United States is biased and full of errors. I think the author's view on capital punishment highlights that the death penalty is unjust and cruel and should be abolished in the United States and should cause our society to lose faith in the American criminal justice system. The article “Boggy Executions: Infamous Examples of Problems on Death Row,” written by Crystal Ponti, explains the cruelty and effect that botched executions have on a prisoner. I find this source reliable because it was published in August 2020 and contains recent and relevant information from a qualified journalist. According to Austin Sarat, professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions: "A botched execution is one that does not follow legal protocol or, more importantly, is not consistent with what might be called standard operating procedure. An estimated 3% of all executions in the United States between 1890 and 2010 were botched. These estimates show that the process of executing prisoners in the United States is seriously flawed. When executions are botched, it results in a long and extremely painful death, causing immense suffering to the prisoner. Although lethal injection is the most “humane” option, it has the highest error rate. Several failed or botched executions are documented in this article. One of these botched executions took place on July 23, 2014, when Joseph Wood was executed by lethal injection. Joseph Wood should have died within 10 minutes of the first injection, but it took two agonizing hours due to a violation of Arizona protocol. The botched execution was blamed on the state's use of a new cocktail of deadly drugs. This proves to me that this was cruel punishment since several witnesses testified that for an hour and forty minutes, Joseph continued to pant, swallow and struggle to breathe. I also think that these botched executions need to be given more attention and not be portrayed as a slight error of confession. According to Sarat, history has proven that it is unlikely that it will be possible to find a foolproof method of taking human life during an execution. I agree with this statement because it is in our nature for humans to make mistakes. Therefore, as long as humans are in charge of the process, there is always a risk of human error. This information proves that the process of executing a prisoner is cruel, as it causes severe suffering when carried out incorrectly, and is unlikely to be executed every time without any complications. orcruel crippled inmates? written by Kim Chandler, the death row population in the United States is aging. There are approximately 2,800 people on death row in United States prisons, approximately 1,200 of whom are over the age of fifty. It is often asserted that the execution of a mentally fragile person or whose health condition could complicate the execution procedure is cruel. This article provides information about the case against a person serving the death penalty named Vernon Madison. Vernon Madison is sixty-seven years old and serving decades on death row. He was convicted in 1985 of murdering a police officer. Since his incarceration, his speech has become slurred and he suffers from confusion, which sometimes makes him believe he is about to be released. Maddison's lawyer, Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, says "killing a fragile man suffering from dementia is unnecessary and cruel." Source “On death row: which American states still apply the death penalty? was also relevant on this point, since it indicated that for those found guilty, the average time between conviction and execution was fourteen years and eight months. I found this source reliable and useful because it was published on November 20, 2020 so the information is recent and relevant, but it also made me question the lengthy procedure for executing a prisoner. When I reviewed this new information, I realized that the long process from conviction to execution is one of the biggest flaws in the capital punishment system. I think we have to consider that after this period, are the executed prisoners the same ones who committed the crime? The case of Vernon Maddison brings me back to this question. I believe that if the convicted prisoner has developed a mental illness during his incarceration that causes him to lose memory of the crime he committed, he does not need to be executed. They no longer pose a threat to society or anyone, which is why I think they should be allowed to live out the rest of their days in prison. If the execution procedure were complicated due to a health problem, which would make the process extremely painful, it would be inhumane to subject a prisoner to this punishment. Is life imprisonment without parole a more beneficial alternative to capital punishment?Christopher Reinhart, a senior attorney, explained the differences in how inmates are treated on death row compared to those on death row serving a sentence of life without parole in an article titled “Prison Conditions for Death Row and Life Without Parole Inmates.” I find this source reliable because it contains relevant information and the author has credentials and is qualified to write about capital punishment even though the article was published in April 2011. It is often claimed that life without parole, or commonly known as LWOP, is a more ethical alternative to capital punishment. The article explains that life-without-parole inmates are subject to fewer restrictions than those on death row and have more access to exercise, sunlight and social interaction. Death row inmates are allowed two hours of recreation outside their cells six days a week and are always isolated from other prisoners, while life without parole inmates can spend six to seven hours a day outside their cells and are allowed to interact with other prisoners. . This has had a positive effect on prisoners, as they have been shown to have better mental health than those on death row, as they are not.