Running head: DEATH PENALTY AS AN ONGOING CONCERN 1

Death Penalty as an Ongoing Concern

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Death Penalty as an Ongoing Concern

Capital punishment continues to be a contested subject within the criminal justice system
in the modern world. Different countries have varying positions on the subject, which has seen
some countries do away with death sentence while others still embrace the practice. In the US,
for instance, the death penalty is legal in thirty-six states (Sethuraju et al. 2016). The practice is
also commonly practiced in other jurisdictions, such as China, South Arabia and Singapore.
There have been several types of research on the subject, to figure out the proportion of people,
or different groups in support for or against the practice. This discussion will address the main
arguments surrounding the use of capital punishment in the modern world. Moreover, it is
critical to look in detail at some of the main arguments for and against the practice.

Main Arguments on Death Penalty

Research on the death penalty has revealed various reasons why most people will support
the practice or oppose it. Sethuraju et al.’s (2016) study on the subject found that the most
commonly cited reasons for supporting the practice include cost, incapacitation, law and order as
well as the deterrence effect. On the other hand, the same study also pointed out some of the
reasons that make the practice inappropriate in the modern world, such as being unfairly applied,
often perceived as immoral, and that it is not good to use violence as a response for violence.
Also, some people feel that innocent people could wrongly be executed. Therefore, people are
divided as to whether capital punishment should be practiced or not.

To start with, it is essential that there are law and order in society, and this makes a harsh
punishment such as a death penalty a compelling sentence for most people. The use of capital
punishment is often associated with the ideology of applying state punishment and violence to
exert social control (Wacquant, 2014). Therefore, the people supporting the practice hold that
having a harsher penalty would reduce crime in society.

The second argument used by people supporting capital punishment is the idea of
incapacitating a criminal. There is a widely held view that criminals such as murderers are likely
to repeat the same crime several times. Therefore, it is appropriate to execute them as a
prevention measure for future crimes (Bohm, 2016). Also, most people supporting capital
punishment because of the ideology of incapacitation points out the ineffectiveness of life
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sentence as an alternative punishment given for death sentence. In particular, they argue that
convicts sentenced to life imprisonment rarely spend their entire life in prison, and would
therefore get out of prison to repeat the same crime (Bohm, 2016). This is the reason that the
death penalty is regarded as an effective punishment.

Retribution is another commonly cited reason for supporting capital punishment. The
concept of retribution, in light of sentencing, can be grouped into two, that is; retribution as a
form of revenge, and as a just desert. Retribution as a just desert implies that any punishment
given to a convicted criminal should be equal to the injury or harm caused by his or her actions,
or in this case, criminal act (Seal, 2014). Some people who support the death penalty argue that it
is right to terminate life if it is established that the offender was responsible for ending another
person’s life. On the other hand, people who support retribution based on the ideology of
revenge argue that the execution will significantly contribute in relieving the pain experienced by
those who lost their loved ones due to the crime (Seal, 2014). The two ideologies, revolving
around retribution, are some of the main arguments often cited by those in support of capital
punishment.

The last main argument often presented by people supporting capital punishment is
associated with cost, in the sense that, the state would spend significantly less amount of money
executing a criminal offender as opposed to keeping him or her under a life imprisonment
program (Sethuraju et al., 2016). However, this view has strongly been opposed by experts. For
instance, Waldo and Myers (2019) argue that life imprisonment is less expensive than carrying
out an execution, which implies that people are ignorant of this fact, and therefore wrongly think
that execution is relatively cheap. Based on this new revelation, it appears that most people
supporting execution due to cost are not aware of the cost comparison between the two
sentences. Therefore, they are likely to change their position based on this new revelation about
execution cost.

Despite there being many reasons highlighted above for execution, there are also reasons
against the practice, which those opposed to the practice often present. First, there is the question
of morality, which implies that the state should, under no circumstances, kill a person they can
control (Sethuraju et al., 2016). Second, there is the perception that an innocent person could be
executed. The second argument is increasingly gaining support because a lot of people sentenced
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to death are subsequently released as new evidence exonerating them from guilt emerges
(Sethuraju et al., 2016). Closely tied to the second argument is the idea of bias, in that, there is
evidence to show an unfair application of the sentence because many of those who end up
executed come from the minorities or people who are underprivileged in society such as the poor
(Sethuraju et al., 2016). With regards to creating a deterrence effect, those opposed to the death
sentence argue that the practice has failed to prevent or reduce cases of murder and that the
brutalizing effect could even encourage people to engage in such vices (Sethuraju et al., 2016).
Lastly, people could likely oppose state executions for emotional reasons. Therefore, despite the
many reasons to use capital punishment, not all people support the practice. Some people, as
illustrated above, feel that the death penalty should be replaced by another form of punishment.

Conclusion

Overall, the discussion above has presented various arguments surrounding the
application of the death penalty in the modern world. In particular, it has become evident that the
main reasons people support the death sentence include cost, incapacitation, law and order, and
the deterrence effect. On the other hand, it has become clear that people opposing the practice
consider it as being unfairly applied, immoral, and that it is not just to use violence as a response
for violence. Also, some people feel that innocent people could easily be executed and that the
death sentence does not provide an opportunity for correcting the error committed. However,
when evaluating both the reasons for and against the practice, it seems that the reasons for the
death penalty outweigh those against the practice. Therefore, capital punishment as the ultimate
punishment ought to continue being exercised in most judicial systems around the world.
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References

Bohm, R. M. (2016). Deathquest: An introduction to the theory and practice of capital

Seal, L. (2014). Capital punishment in twentieth-century Britain: Audience, justice, memory.

Sethuraju, R., Sole, J., & Oliver, B. E. (2016). Understanding death penalty support and
opposition among criminal justice and law enforcement students. SAGE Open, 6(1),
2158244015624952.

Wacquant, L. (2014). The global firestorm of law and order: On punishment and
neoliberalism. Thesis Eleven, 122(1), 72-88.

Waldo, G. P., & Myers, W. (2019). Criminological research and the death penalty: has research
by criminologists impacted capital punishment practices?. American journal of criminal
justice, 44(4), 536-580.