Capital Punishment :: essays research papers

Capital Punishment is the lawful infliction of the death penalty. The leash most common death penalties are the gas chamber, lethal injection, and the electric chair. These methods are used to be a deterrent against crimes such as take away. The level given to these people is that they are little likely to commit a crime knowing theyll receive the ultimate punishment to kill. No other(a) punishment is to deter man so effectively from committing a crime as the punishment of death. Now many people may agree that this literary argument is correct, but Criminologists have built a strong case that the threat of death failed to deter murder, anymore effectively than prison. Therefore, to inflict harm to one, is just obviously useless. Capital Punishment is meant to deter crimes but at what cost? Capital trials are longer and more expensive at every step than other murder trials. Pre-trial motions, expert witness investigations, jury selection, and the necessity for two trials--one o n guilt and one on sentencing--make capital cases extremely costly, even before the appeals attend to begins. Guilty pleas are almost unheard of when the punishment is death. In addition, many of these trials result in a life sentence rather than the death penalty, so the state pays the cost of life imprisonment on top of the expensive trial. On top of that some states are spending large amounts of money, but murder rates are not going down. For example, the most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 one million million per execution more then life imprisonment. Texas, with over 300 people on death row, is spending an estimated $2.3 million per case, but its murder rate the Great Compromiser one of the highest in the country. A death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.The exorbitant costs of capital punis hment are actually making America less safe because badly needed financial and legal resources are macrocosm diverted from effective crime fighting strategies. Across the country, police force are being laid off, prisoners are being released early, the courts are clogged, and crime continues to rise. In Texas, prisoners are serving only 20% of their time and rearrests are common. Now if money was place men in prison instead of killing them. Also, Georgia is laying off 900 correctional personnel and New Jersey has had to dismiss 500 police officers.