Opposing the Death Penalty Essay -- Against Capital Punishment Essays

Opposing the Death Penalty Capital punishment is the infliction of the death penalty on a person convicted of a crime. Executing convicted felons has been one of the most widely practiced forms of criminal punishment in the United States. However, this highly controversial form of punishment is not carried out in all of the states in the nation. Currently, the states that do not practice the death penalty are: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Even for the states that do enforce the death penalty, it has been a topic of debate for many years. In this paper, I will review the major issues related to capital punishment with an emphasis on opposition to it. There are two groups who argue over the decision to take a person's life as a punishment for a crime. There are many points of discussion including whether or not it is a fitting and reasonable punishment, whether or not it acts as a deterrent to crime and whether or not it is morally neutral or morally wrong. These two classes of people can be grouped together as the 'retentionists', and the 'abolitionists' (Americana 596). For the retentionists, the main reasons they are in support of the death penalty are to take revenge and to punish. Their main worry is the protection of society from dangerous criminals. The retentionists have some good ideas, but they are still very wrong. The abolitionists view the death penalty as morally and legally wrong. Further, they argue that it does not act as a deterrent for crime, it is irreversible and could be used on an innocent person, it is more expensive than imprisonment, and that those who are con... ...iego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1997 ?Capital Punishment.? Encyclopedia Americana. 1990 ed. Draper, Thomas. Capital Punishment. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1985. Gibeaut, John. ?Death penalty a lively issue.? Aug 2002: 70-74. Criminal Justice Periodicals Proquest. Roesch Library, Dayton. 18 October 2002. Leone, Bruno. ?Does Capital Punishment Deter Crime San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1998 McMillon, Rhonda. ?Seeking a fair penalty.? Sep 2002: 70-72. Criminal Justice Periodicals Proquest. Roesch Library, Dayton. 18 October 2002. Mitchell, Hayley. The Death Penalty. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 2001 Nathanson, Stephen. An Eye For and Eye? Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001 Pohier, Jacques. ?The Death Penalty and Torture.? New York:Seabury Press, 1979