Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Against Capital Punishment

The death penalty today is considerably different from the way it used to be. In his history of the death penalty in America, Robert Johnson observed that for much of recorded history, executions were public spectacles (3). In the name of punishment, he notes, often gross bodily torture was inflicted upon the condemned. Historically, offenders were executed very soon after their crimes with much of the community directly or indirectly involved (Johnson 3). And, by contemporary standards, some of the crimes that were punished by death were decidedly trivial. For example, the execution of petty thieves (Johnson 3). On the other hand, Johnson notes that executions are preceded by years of confinement on death row and prisoners are no longer subjected to the indignity and pain of physical torture. Instead, he seems to believe that they are now subjected to the pain of mental torture as they are held captive until they have depleted their legal appeals, when finally they are "killed with much dispatch and (we hope) little pain" (Johnson 3). Perhaps most importantly, Johnson notes that execution today are removed from the public view and are much more somber, restrained, and professional undertakings than they ever were before. However, he is convinced that all these changes only served to produce for the penalty of death the "illusion of justice and humanity" (Johnson 4).

Johnson states without reservation that the reality of the death penalty is profoundly unjust and inhumane (4). He argues that the modern death penalty involves nothing less than a slow death by psychological torture, which he believes no offender deserves. He believes that today's death penalty reduced the condemned prisoner is reduced to the status of an object--a body and not a person--which is then put to death following an impersonal bureaucratic routine (Johnson 4). He notes that the executioners are dehumanized as well, though only partially and s...

Page 1 of 8 Next >

More on Against Capital Punishment...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Against Capital Punishment. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:10, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707372.html