Capital Punishment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Capital Punishment - Research Paper Example Political campaigns, religious leaders, and foreign press make quite a spectacle of how the United States legal system regularly sentences people to die for the crimes they have committed. As such, the United States is a bit of a novelty in the developed world as one of the last few 1st world countries in which the death penalty is not only still legal but employed in great numbers (Debrevnik, 2004). This short analysis is far too brief to provide the level of critique that a topic such as the death penalty deserves; however, this analysis will discuss a few of the strengths and weaknesses of the death penalty in its current form and weigh them against some of its greatest weaknesses to provide the reader with a clearer understanding and sense of moral responsibility with relation to whether or not the death penalty is a net good or a net evil in the criminal justice system and in our society as a whole. It is necessary to note that although this author is in favor of the death penal ty, there are many serious drawbacks to its application, the high economic costs it entails, and the oftentimes arbitrary nature with which it has been historically employed. Although these concerns are valid, the author maintains that notwithstanding many of the current drawbacks associated with the death penalty, the morality and ethics behind it are still poignant enough to merit its support. From a purely economic standpoint, capital punishment is an extraordinarily expensive form of punishment. As compared with life in prison, the average cost of execution is approximately the same cost to keep a prisoner housed and fed for over 100 years. Currently, the average cost of execution in California exceeds 4 million dollars per criminal executed. Comparatively, the average cost to keep a prisoner housed and fed as well as ensuring proper health care and medicine usually does not exceed $35,000 per year (Semeshenko et al, 2012). At such an exorbitantly high expense, it is clear that choosing capital punishment on the grounds that killing the criminal will somehow save the state money over time is entirely illogical. As such, the argument for execution does not hinge on economic savings; instead, it hinges upon the Judeo-Christian belief of â€Å"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth†. In this way, the major supporters of the death penalty believe that certain crimes are so heinous that rehabilitation is not possible. As such, one’s life is forfeit for certain crimes if convicted. This further raises the tangential issue of the purpose of prison; whether it is it to rehabilitate or to punish. According to death penalty activists, prison’s primary objective is to punish with rehabilitation being a very distant second. A secondary issue with the death penalty in its current form is that they death penalty has been proven not to be a significant deterrent against the crimes it punishes. With the United States being a prime example, it is ob vious that murder rates in the United States are comparably higher than almost any other nation that currently does not have the death penalty as a legal option for a convicted criminal. Accordingly, the death penalty cannot be seen as adequate deterrent to dissuade would-be criminals from committing crime; however, it can be seen as a barometer of a society’s overall tolerance for violent crime and the clear and