The Death Penalty Support

A broad support for the death penalty exists among the American population. As a consequence of the high levels of public support for capital punishment, 38 of 53 major jurisdictions (the federal government, the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) have death penalty laws in force. An anachronism in this scenario, however, is that proportionately few people are legally executed in the contemporary United States as a whole than was true in earlier years ù before capital punishment was first ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme court and then reinstated as a constitutional punishment (Joynt and Shuchart 40).

Since the constitutionality of capital punishment was restored by the United States Supreme Court in 1976, in excess of 5,000 persons have been sentenced to death in American courtrooms. Of those sentences, approximately 40 percent have been set aside judicially, leaving nearly 3,000 persons on the so-called death row in American prisons. Since 1976, less than 500 persons have been legally executed in the United States, although the rate of executions is increasing (Joynt and Shuchart 40

. . .
, raw statistics indicate that ethnic and racial background influences oneÆs chances of being executed. African-Americans (especially) and Hispanic-Americans much more so than European-Americans are represented among those legally executed in the United States disproportionately to the representation of those groups in the overall American population (Bureau of Statistics 410). The two sides on this issue at a very broad level contend either that African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans are executed at disproportionately high levels as a consequence of discrimination, or alternatively that the disproportionately higher rates of execution simply mirror disproportionately higher rates of the commission of death penalty offenses by these population groups (McCord 211-228). Throughout the history of the United States, most lawful executions have occurred as punishment for murder (Bureau of Statistics 409). Since 1964, no person has been executed in the United States as punishment for any offense other than murder (Joynt and Shuchart 40). Arguments over the death penalty conducted in the mass media and by politicians most often focused on the deterrent effect of the punishment. The deterrent effect, or lack thereof, however, was
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Joynt Shuchart, Bureau Statistics, Conversely African-Americans, Supreme Court, African-Americans Hispanic-Americans, Steffenmeier Streifel, , Puerto Rico, capital punishment, death penalty, Hispanic-Americans European-Americans, Justice Statistics, bureau statistics, capital punishment laws, punishment laws, joynt shuchart, deterrent effect, murder rates, shuchart 40, statistics 410, joynt shuchart 40, percent murder offenders, sentenced death, bureau statistics 410, percent total population,
Approximate Word count = 1245
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

More Essays on The Death Penalty Support