Summary:
A history of both capital punishment and the debate over whether or not it should be practiced, including the author's own opinion against it. While capital punishment has been practiced since ancient times, debate over its use has taken place since the eighteenth century.
Capital punishment is a legal infliction of death for violating a criminal law. The practice of capital punishment is as old as government itself. Capital punishment or in easier terms the death penalty is applied to people who have done various forms of bad behavior. Method of execution are crucifixion, stoning, drowning, impaling, and beheading but in such present time execution is formed by lethal gas or injections, electrocution, hanging, or shooting. I truly do not believe in death penalty. To me I think executing someone for various form of wrongdoing would not punish them. Instead I think that is just taking them out of there misery. The punishment for doing something wrong that is so unlike for that the person committing such act, should not be killed but put through suffering and a un believed way of living in jail for the rest of there life.
Since ancient times most governments have punished a various amount of crimes by death and have conducted executions as a routine criminal law. Debates on the death penalty have begun as early as the 18th century. It all started because European commentators began to think about the life of individual and began to criticize the government practices that the European considered unjust, including capital punishment. This controversy and debate over whether governments should use the death penalty continue today because of such people who like me think capital punishment should not be applied to government.
The first major movement to retrieve the death penalty began during the era know as the age of Enlightment. Jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria published Tratto dei delitte e delle pene, which translated in 1880 as Essay on Crimes and Punishments. Many people thoughts of this book were that it would be a great start in the early campaign against capital punishment. People who disagree with capital punishment say it is brutal and degrading, while the people for it considers it necessary form of revenge for terrible crimes. Those who are for capital punishment believe that it is a good way of preventing crimes. Both advocates and opponents of the death penalty disagree with the interpretation of the statistical analyses of it effect. Opponents of capital punishment see it as an issue against human rights and the limits of the governmental power.
There have been alternatives points of view about wheather capital punishment are right and also about the question begin asked once it becomes a public issue.
Early people who did not approve capital punishment objected to its brutality. The method of execution was cruel which involved public spectacles. Capital punishment was not reserved only for most serious crimes but also for a variety of less serious offenses. Brutality gave the people who supported execution two different responses. The first one was that they claimed that capital punishment was necessary for the safety of the other citizen and the second was that the death penalty supporters were required to remove some of the nasty aspects of execution. Execution that was open to the public would not be allowed any more and would have to be done behind closed doors. Also governments replace traditional methods such as hanging to modern methods such as electrocution and poison gas.
There very little common ground between the supporter and opponents of the death penalty on the debate about execution and human dignity. The opponents asset that is degrading to the humanity of the person punished .Ever since the 18th century those who wish to stop the death penalty, have stressed the meaning of requiring government to recognize the importance of each individual. On the other side the supporters see nothing wrong with government's intent to killing terrible people who commit terrible crime. So the supporters see no need to limit the governmental power in the area of capital punishment.
Early opponents of capital opponents argued a lot that it was not necessary to control crime by inflicting death and should be properly punished. Other alternative punishment such as imprisonment could properly isolate criminals from the community, put off offenders from committing crimes, an express the community. Supporter believd in the ultimate penalty of death was necessary for punishment of terrible crime because it provided the most complete retribution and condemnation. They argued that the treat of execution was a unique limit. Also the supporter contends that capital punishment self-evidently prevents more crime because death is so much more feared than mere restrictions on one personal liberty. Both opposing side still debate the effectiveness.
Social scientist has collected statistical data on trends homicide before an after jurisdiction. A great amount of these statistical comparisons indicate that the presence or absence of capital punishment or executions does not visibly influence the rate of homicide. Opponents of capital punishment maintain that these studies refute the argument that death penalty deter crime. Many opponents of capital punishment consider the deterrence argument fully negated and no longer part of the debate. But the supporter of the death penalty disputes that interpretation of the statistical analyses of deterrent effect. The advocate's note that because of the death penalty is reserved for the most aggravated murder, the deterrent effect of capital punishment of such crimes may not be apparent in data on homicide rate in general.
Human right is a modern debate about capital punishment. Modern opposition to the death penalty is seen as a reaction to the political history of the 20th century, most notably the Holocaust the systematic mass killing of Jew and other during World War 2 which was from believed 1939-1945. World War 2 made major nation in Western Europe utilized capital punishment. Once the defeat of Nation Socialist and Fascist governments of Germany and Italy these two nations became the first major power in Europe to abolish capital punishment. The postwar movement to end capital punishment, beginning in Italy and Germany and then spreading represented a reaction to dictatorial forms of government that steadily violated the right of the individual.
The human rights focus on the death penalty has continued, in political change. Countries that are becoming more deomcartic have been eager to abolish the death penalty once people view capital punishment as a human rights issue. During this time they associated with the former regime and its abuses of power. As an example a number of Eastern European nations abolished capital punishment shortly after the collapse of communist regimes there in 1989. In similarity, the multiracial government of South Africa formed in 1994 quickly outlawed a death penalty many associated with apartheid, the official policy of racial segregation that had been in place since the late 1940s.
Since early times, capital punishment was available to every government for especially serious crimes and often for a great variety of less serious offenses. The word felony, which today signifies all serious crime, was traditional classified in England for crimes punishable by death. Since the 18th century the long used trend in nation of Western Europe and North and South America has been reduction of the number of capital crime and the execution of fewer criminals.
Early effort against the death penalty originated to restrict the number of capital crimes and execution. For in stance, in the late 18th century when all murder in the United State was punishable by death, Pennsylvania set up in dividing murder into two categories. Pennsylvania passes that authorized punishment of first degree murder by death, while second degree murder was punishable by imprisonment only. In other states United States penal codes uniformly required death for certain serious crimes. Although many jurisdiction limited imposition of the death penalty, no government had formally abolished capital punishment until Michigan did so I 1846.Within 20 years Venezuela and Portugal had formally eliminated the practice as will. In the beginning of the 20th century the death sentence had been abolished in a handful of nations, such Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Norway, and The Netherlands.
A defeat of the Axis of powers provided a foundation for the elimination of the death penalty in Western Europe. Some of the nation involved in the war sow abolished of capital punishment as a way to disassociate themselves fort the atrocities that had taken place. Italy formally abolished the death penalty in 1947 and Federal Republic Of Germany did so in 1949. The British government abolished the death penalty in 1967 after they instituted a Royal Commission to study capital punishment in 1950.By the early 1980s every major country in Western Europe had stopped executing criminal.
By the late 1990s, for the first time in history, the world's nations were almost evenly divided with respect to capital punishment. As of 2000, 72 countries no longer authorized the penalty of death for any crimes. Another 13 countries authorized capital punishment only for exceptional crimes, such as crimes under military law and crimes committed in exceptional circumstances, such as during wartime
An exact amount of 87 nations authorized the death penalty for some crimes in 2000. Typically, capital punishment is reserved for individuals who commit the most violent or serious crimes, such as murder and treason. Still some governments authorize capital punishment for nonviolent or nonfatal crimes such as in Libya importing alcohol and trading in foreign currency are capital crimes. None of the countries in Western Europe utilize capital punishment, nor do most countries in South America. Asian countries and Islamic nations tend to practice capital punishment. The majority of countries in Africa also authorize the death penalty.
Although the trend has been that fewer countries allow executions, the worldwide trend in the number of executions conducted cannot be reliably established. According to Amnesty International a private organization working to abolish death penalty, have found out that a total of 1,813 prisoners were executed in 31 countries in 1999. Five nations--China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States--conducted 85 percent of all these executions. However, information about executions is somewhat unreliable because not all executions are reported and not all reported executions can be confirmed.
The worldwide trend toward abolition of capital punishment will likely continue. The nations that have abolished the death penalty have shown no tendency to reverse this policy. Only major political instability could be expected to reverse the trend in Europe, Canada, and South America. Among nations that have retained capital punishment, pressure to reduce or eliminate the death penalty appears to be increasing. China and the Islamic nations of Asia and the Middle East are likely to continue executions.
The United State is apart from the general trends on capital punishment. It is the only Western industrialized nation where executions still take place, while it is the only nation that combines frequent executions with a highly developed legal system characterized by respect for individual rights. Many public opinion polls indicate that capital punishment enjoys significant support in the United States, but it remains a highly controversial and hotly contested issue. Opponents even question whether a high level of support actually exists for the death penalty.
In the United States, each state may choose whether to authorize the death penalty for violations of state criminal law. The majority of states allow capital punishment for serious crimes, but only a handful of states regularly conduct executions. The United States has a federal system of government, in which power is divided between a central (authority and smaller local units of government. Federal law provides the death penalty for more than 40 crimes, including treason, various forms of aggravated murder, and large-scale drug trafficking. However, less than 1 percent of the persons presently sentenced to death are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Capital punishment in the United States, therefore, is primarily a matter of state law and practice.
Both law and practice regarding the death penalty vary widely in the 50 states. Twelve states do not have a death penalty. The most serious form of punishment in such states is life imprisonment, sometimes without the possibility of parole. The other 38 states all provide that some forms of aggravated murder can be punished with death. Several states also authorize capital punishment for the non-lethal offenses of drug trafficking, hijacking, treason, and sexual assault.
The current U.S. system of capital punishment differs from that of the pre-1972 era because many federal constitutional standards must now be obeyed in death penalty cases. For example, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment forbids the execution of defendants with mental retardation, as well as those who, due to mental illness, are not capable of understanding the meaning of their pending execution. In the 1988 case of Thompson v. Oklahoma, the Court rejected an attempt to impose the death penalty on an individual who was under the age of 16 at the time he committed his crime. In the 2002 case of Ring v. Arizona, the Court found that juries, not judges, must decide whether aggravating factors exist that make a defendant eligible for the death penalty. The Court has also indicated that only individuals convicted of crimes that result in a death are eligible for the death penalty. Contemporary laws that authorize capital punishment for individuals who commit offenses that do not result in death have not yet been challenged and reviewed by the Court.
Since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, nearly 800 executions have taken place in the United States. Of the 38 states that allowed capital punishment in 2002, only 29 had actually conducted an execution since 1976. Every year in the United States juries sentence between 200 and 300 criminals to death. The number of death sentences is a tiny fraction of the total number of murders that occur each year--less than 2 percent. However, the number of death sentences far exceeds the number of executions. The result of this steady supply of condemned prisoners is a huge and ever-growing death row population. In 2002 about 3,700 prisoners were under death sentence in the United States.
Between reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 and mid-2002, nine women were executed in the United States. More than 50 women remained on death row in 2002. About 2 percent of all death row inmates were sentenced as juvenile offenders, meaning they were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes. Between 1976 and mid-2002, U.S. jurisdictions executed 21 juvenile offenders.
I have prove many point while writing this piece of work that I am not the only one that believe capital punishment should be applied to our government. Ever since the early time people have fought to change what has killed many people. Many nations have accomplished my opinion on the death penalty. I do not want some nation, countries, or even states to approve capital punishment. I would like that no one believes in it I truly think punishing a person that has committed a crime by killing them wont solve anything but killing that person. Other ways of punishing the criminal have been applied by many opponents of capital punishment as of my self during this piece of writing. Hopefully by me writing what both supporter and opponents of capital punishment gave you the reader an understanding on how I fell about it and if not change your mind already it will.
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