The debate over capital punishment

The debate over capital punishment involves every citizen that lives and breathes; no individual is immune from the threat of death, and no individual living in the United States can ignore that in 38 of 50 states the government has been vested with the power to take the lives of those who would kill (Amnesty International Sec. 10). Creating a moral paradox in the truest sense, the death penalty demands that we at once justify and forbid the same act. If killing is wrong, and we aim to deter wrong action, how may we rightly wield death as a punishment for those who murder? Such logic seems the essence of hypocrisy. And yet, proponents of the death penalty invoke an idea that makes an appeal to reason: capital punishment is the epitome of proportional justice, and those who murder are, once executed, forever incapacitated. They will never strike again. Various socio-psychological perspectives may be viewed to address or even explain the possible causes of capital punishment, and why it troubles us today.

The extent of the debate in American society is significant; the death penalty is a divisive issue, and that some states allow for executions while others do not makes the argument particularly thorny. In the United States, more than half of the nation's death sentences, 115, were issued in just five states in 2000: Texas, California, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania (State Government News 6). This figure indicates a decline in frequency, as the 214 death

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over-represented in the prison population. A detailed look at the sociological factors acting as a catalyst to capital crimes is beyond the scope of this paper. Here, it is perhaps more prudent to examine some facets of the death penalty that defend its use as a fitting reparation for the heinous crime of felony murder. Our sense of justice has, for centuries (if not millennia), been rooted in a concept of proportional punishment. When an individual takes the life of another, it seems only fitting that his life be taken from him. This is the essence of the Golden Rule, which encourages us to model our behavior towards others after how we ourselves would choose to be treated by others. In David Leibowitz's article entitled "Capital Punishment is Just", he explains "In a nation where justice is often represented as a set of scales, execution as punishment for a depraved murder marks the ultimate� systematic balance" (140). Exodus 21 is unequivocally the most oft-cited of Biblical references used in defense of capital punishment. The "eye for an eye" verses lay the foundations for a system of proportional justice that is more specific than most realize. Exodus verse 23 reads: "If there shall be a fatality, then you sha

Category: Government - T