Essay Example on Capital Punishment: Historical Practice & Present Controversy

Introduction

Capital punishment is one of the most controversial topics in the US. It refers to the legal practice of execution that is granted by a court to an individual for the criminal law violation. Fundamentally, this practice is also referred to as the death penalty and often implies that individuals subjected to it must be executed through murder. Growing pieces of evidence show that the death penalty began long ago in the history of England, where people died due to the minor offenses they were involved in (Desai, & Garrett, 2018). In ancient times, capital punishment was conducted through various forms such as drowning, crucifixion, beheading, and stoning, among others (Braslavskiy, Doko Tchatoka, & Masson, 2019). However, capital punishment practiced today is conducted through the utilization of lethal substances, injection, shorting, or hanging. It has become the most controversial punishment by law in the US. While this practice has received a lot of opposition in the US and other nations across the world, capital punishment plays a critical role in our criminal justice system. This paper discusses the roles of capital punishment in the US criminal justice.

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Crime Reduction and Prevention

A growing number of studies have shown that capital punishment is vital in crime reduction and prevention (Garland, 2017). Fundamentally, capital punishment is morally just in the world today. Notably, it has emerged to become a mechanism through which society can express its moral outrage towards various criminal activities that takes place. Broadly, the capital punishment acts as a deterrent for illegal activities. A significant aspect of this role is based on the fact that the practice helps people to follow the existing laws of the land. Studies have shown that the implementation of the death penalty has helped established tremendous milestones in the developments of criminal procedures in the countries where they have been adopted (O'Brien, 2018).

Such adoption means that any failure by an individual to abide by the law implies that he or she is destroying the values of the whole nation. For instance, the murder of 15 students at the Columbine High School by Harris and Klebold demonstrated a pure lack of life values in them (Desai, & Garrett, 2018). Broadly, the perpetrators showed that they did not value humanity and the fundamental right to live. Based on the fact that they attached no value to society, there was no need to lower their lives too and thus deserved capital punishment. The presence of the victim is therefore treated significantly in this case than that of the perpetrator (Braslavskiy et al. 2019). Thus, capital punishment, in this case, serves as an illustration that a given nation has its set of regulations and laws that must not be broken.

Reduces Prison Congestion

Capital punishment helps in reducing the number of individuals in prisons, particularly those with serious criminal records. Studies have shown that the prison system may not work effectively if there are serious congestion issues. The death penalty ensures that there is no need to keep such kind of criminals in our prison system. Additionally, reports indicate that serial criminals who are involved in dangerous activities such as murder are twice more likely to get involved in the same practice later in their lifetime (Garland, 2017). The infliction of capital punishment, in this case, will be vital in preventing future occurrences of similar cases from the same perpetrators, but also from other criminals who may have thoughts of killing or taking away life (Desai, & Garrett, 2018). It is important to note that the majority of prison facilities in the US are established with adequate food, shelter, and other necessary provisions such as freedom. Ideally, there is no point in allowing criminals who murder innocent citizens to remain in prisons to enjoy such rules.

Cost Reduction

Finally, capital punishment helps reduce the cost involved in the monitoring and management of individuals for many years (Desai, & Garrett, 2018). The constitution of the US provides the magistrate with an opportunity to slap a criminal of murder as many years as possible in prison. In many cases, murderers will serve in prisons for nearly two or more decades with a massive amount of costs involved in keeping, feeding, and enabling them to enjoy life in prison (Sato, 2019). The application of capital punishment under these circumstances thus helps reduce any cost that may be involved to specially treat the murderers who might have taken away the lives of the innocent citizens (Garland, 2017). Such taxpayers' money can consequently be diverted or channeled to other financial kits to assist even the less fortunate within, the larger American society.

Conclusion

In sum, capital punishment is a vital tool that helps to deter criminals against crimes. There has been a drastic reduction in the crime rate in the states and nations that have upheld the death penalty. One of the biggest arguments that opposes the capital punishment is that people feel that it is an extreme violation of the eight amendment, which clearly prohibits the cruel and unusual punishment. However, capital punishment is a great tool that has helped many nations across the world reduce the incidences of murder and other forms of crime. The majority of people will, therefore, avoid doing so because of the knowledge that they will receive the ultimate punishment for killing. Society needs to be protected from any future murder and moral decay. If a criminal has killed another person, then it is unethical to allow that person to live whenever there is an innocent, dead person. Capital punishment is based entirely on the consideration of both morality and justice.

References

Braslavskiy, E., Doko Tchatoka, F., & Masson, V. (2019). The importance of punishment substitutability in criminometric studies. Bulletin of Economic Research, 71(3), 491-507. https://media.adelaide.edu.au/economics/papers/doc/wp2019-02.pdf

Desai, A., & Garrett, B. L. (2018). The State of the Death Penalty. Notre Dame L. Rev., 94, 1255. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6524&context=faculty_scholarship

Garland, D. (2017). The concept of American exceptionalism and the case of capital punishment. American Exceptionalism in Crime and Punishment, 103-120. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6524&context=faculty_scholarship

O'Brien, D. (2018). Investigating the Origin of Europe and America's Diverging Positions on the Issue of Capital Punishment. SOCIAL & POLITICAL REVIEW, 98.

Sato, M. (2019). Reframing the debate on attitudes towards the death penalty. In Comparative Capital Punishment. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781786433244/9781786433244.00027.xml