Death Penalty: incoherent and unjustifiable?
The death penalty or also known as capital punishment is nothing new. Death penalty laws date back as early as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon. Punishments can include shooting, hanging, electrocution, poison gas, and lethal injection. Since as early as the Eighteenth Century B.C., the death penalty has stayed strong and is still commonly used in most countries. The United States is not an exception to this. However, some states have gone out of their way and deemed it irrelevant. So far, 28 states have the death penalty in place and 22 states have banned it. The death penalty has stayed a current political issue and has gained traction among lawmakers. For example, Colorado Governor Jared Polis has recently signed a bill that abolished the death penalty in July 2020.
Throughout the United States, capital punishment has only become more popular as the years have gone. As murder stays on the rise and numerous other violent crimes continue to stay persistent, more and more people are in support of the death penalty. Can you blame them? It makes so much sense on the surface. The death penalty brings closure, scares other criminals, and shows that the state cares. This is not the case, though. The death penalty does not deter crime, presents racism, wrongfully executes, and the cost is absurd.
Crime and Effectiveness
The death penalty has no positive effect on the community. As mentioned in the last section, one may think that the death penalty “scares” criminals, but that simply is not the case. During the past 20 years, states with the death penalty in place have 48–101% higher homicide rates. In addition, a study examining eleven countries that abolished the death penalty found that ten of the eleven countries had a decrease in crime. Criminologists and Police Chiefs have also been surveyed and results have shown that they are in fact, not in favor of the death penalty.
Racism
Although we have made great progress towards equality, those of color still suffer. Race plays a significant and unacceptable role in capital punishment. Black defendants are 4.5 times as likely to receive a death sentence as a similarly situated white. To add to this, from 1995–2000, 80% of all the federal capital cases recommended by U.S. Attorneys to the Attorney General seeking the death penalty involved people of color. An analysis of the relationship between racial stereotyping and death sentence convictions showed that black defendants who possessed darker skin were twice as likely to be given the death penalty. According to a study of federal cases conducted in 2000, federal prosecutors were nearly 50% more likely than black prosecutors to offer white murder suspects a plea bargain that permitted them to avoid the death penalty.
Wrongful Executions
Executing anyone through capital punishment is unacceptable, but when the suspect is innocent it changes everything. An execution can not be undone when new evidence shows the suspect to be innocent. Wrongful execution is not uncommon, either. Since 1973, around 170 people have been wrongfully executed, and these are just the ones proven to be innocent. Furthermore, the National Academy of Sciences reports that at least 4.1 percent of defendants sentenced to death in the United States are innocent. Many argue that even more than 4.1% of those sentenced are innocent. Cameron Todd William, who was executed in 2004 for murdering his three children and setting his house on fire, is an example of a mistaken execution. It wasn’t until 2010 when fire forensic scientists were able to confirm that the evidence against him was incorrect.
Absurd Cost
The death penalty is significantly more expensive than a system that uses life sentences without the possibility of release. In 2003, a legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution and were found to have a median cost of $1.26 million, while non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000. In California, the current system costs $137 million per year, however, it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty. Additionally, the cases of the 185 people on Pennsylvania’s death row are estimated to cost $351.5 million. All this money could be invested in other aspects of our lives or used towards fixing the various inmates.
With all that being said, mass abolishment of the death penalty is the most reasonable course of action. I could further argue why the fact that the state is deciding who lives and dies is completely unjust, but I will keep this article short and sweet. What do you think?
