The issue of capital punishment generates a lot of heat and can be an interesting essay topic. Death penalty statistics indicate that there are 5 countries that account for over 80% of all killings by the state. The top countries with death penalty are China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The good thing is that there seems to be some positive progress. There are 30 states in the United States that have banned capital punishment. Two third of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty. This is a good move as the sentence affects the development of countries and culture. Here are several ways in which execution negatively affects nations.
It is more expensive as compared to life imprisonment
One thing that may surprise you is that the death penalty is more expensive as compared to life in prison. For instance, capital punishment in California is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $114 million every year. This is far much more than the cost of keeping the convicts locked up in prison. For every execution, the state spends $250 million.
On top of the costs met by the state, there are other costs met by the federal government. For instance, the Federal government’s court system usually spends around $12 million every year to defend inmates on death row. The cost associated with capital punishment is high because it often involves a long, complex, drawn out and expensive judicial process.
It has a negative impact on Jurors, executioners and governors of justice
Many who argue in favor of capital punishment say that one of the pros of the death penalty is that it helps to deter crime. However, people who go with this line of argument forget the psychological effect that execution has on other human being involved. In fact, there is an argument that jurors and executors are also victims of the death penalty.
Due to the reports, after carrying out an execution, there are staff members who request to be transferred from that department. Others even go to the extent of seeking employment elsewhere. Many of them report that they experience trouble sleeping. There are fears that executors can easily suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. This can raise another cost of trying to treat them on top of the fact that they can become unproductive members of society.
There is a probability of killing the wrong people
According to a statement by William Blackstone a judge in England in the 18th century, it is better for 10 guilty people to be freed than for one person who isn’t guilty to be wrongfully convicted. With capital punishment, the chance of killing the wrong people is always there. There are hundreds of people who have been exonerated and freed from death row after additional evidence such as DNA. This is despite serving for a long time in remand prison.
The execution of just one innocent person is a huge price to pay. In one study that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), it was noted that 1 in every 25 death row inmates are innocent. You can guess the number considering that there are over 3000 death row convicts in the United States alone. You can seek death penalty topics from the experts from writing services if you are searching for a topic for your death penalty essay. This is one of the areas worth exploring.
It models the same behavior it is trying to prevent
The goal of the death penalty is to deter murderers. However, its model is set on the same behavior it is trying to prevent. It is an indication that killing is allowed as long as it is being done by the state. This can prove paradoxical and capital punishment seems to go against the same claims it makes.
Whether an act of violence is done injustice, to affirm the rights or to defend peace, it does not end violence. Instead, it justifies its continuation. This is, therefore, one of the cons you should consider of the death sentence. If you would like to write on this subject in your assignment, you can get help from professionals.
It is ineffective
There is enough evidence to show that death doesn’t reduce the rates of murder. According to the FBI unified Crime Reports, states that have capital punishment have a murder rate that is higher than other countries by over 50%. There is also another international study that took into consideration the criminal violence of 110 nations over a period of 74 years and it was noted that capital punishment served no purpose in deterring criminals.
It is suggested that one of the reasons why execution doesn’t deter murder is because most of these murders are usually done when people are in a fit of rage and they do not consider the consequences of their actions. A former attorney general in the United States, Janet Reno says that he has inquired whether capital punishment is a deterrent to murder and has never seen any evidence to suggest so. People who murder have temporary insanity as a result of jealousy, alcoholism, drug addiction, brain damage or even chemical imbalance and have no time of thinking about the consequences when committing the murder.
Conclusion
Whether a death sentence is justified or not is a subject that has been debated for many centuries and it continues even now. This is why this is one of the topics that instructors love assigning to their students. There are those who believe that someone who kills should also be killed. They also add that it helps to appease the family of the victim. But by considering the above cons, you can see why capital punishment negatively affects the development of a nation.
