Capital Punishment
The death penalty is a necessary evil that has a positive effect on society today. It is an effective deterent of crime as well as a safeguard for society. It also helps to keep order in our cities. Furthermore, I fell it is a just and effective punishment for those who have commited crimes heinous enough to deserve death.
The death penalty is not a new idea in our world. Its origins date back over 3,700 years to the Babylonian civilization, where it was prescribed for a variety of crimes. (Capital Punishment p.10). It was also greatly used in the Greek and Roman empires. It continued into England during the Middle Ages, and then to the American colonies where it exists still today. In the colonies, death was a prescribed punishment for crimes such as: murder, rape, arson, and perjury. In America today, the main crime deserving death is obviously murder. (Capital Punishment p.11-15).
Does the death penalty truly deter crimes and murder? This question is at the heart of a heated political controversy over the punishment. Opposers to the death penalty say no because of the large amount of people on death row today. They also say that states that have the death penalty have a higher crime rate than those that do not, and therefore it is not effective and somewhat contributes to the problem. (http://www.rit.edu/~wwl2461/cp.html). I must point out though that states that have the death penalty are usually highly urbanized areas that most likely will have high crime rates because of the large population. Rather, in rural states there is no need for the death penalty because the population is most likely low and scattered throughout the region. States that practice capital punishment do so because of high crime rates, not vice versa. (http://www.rit.edu/~wwl2461/cp.html). Abolitionists also state that the death penalty is a racist punishment, and only given to African Americans. In the May 11, 1998 issue of JET...
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