Reduction in Crime Rates

Introduction

The death penalty is a popular subject for debating. The smartest people in the world still cannot give us an answer to the following question: “Is capital punishment right or wrong?” It touches moral principles and beliefs, but what about facts? Reasons for execution being legal or illegal are quite clear. Two of the most important reasons that it should be illegal are cost of the process and crime rates.

Background

Even if the debates about capital punishment still going on in the country, execution is legal in most of the states. According to Michael Dow Burkhead in Life for a Life, there are more executions closer to the South (82%) unlike Midwest (11%), West (6%) and Northeast (less than 1%).(7) One of the reasons why the South has much more cases of execution is a higher murder rate. Also, there are different methods of execution according to different states. As determined by Death Pelaty Information Center, all 32 states that legalize death penalty have lethal injection as a primary method. The other eighth have electrocution as another method. Five states use Gas Chamber. Delaware, three of them still practice Hanging, and only two have Firing Squad as an alternative to other methods.(1) Some states have more than one way to execute in case lethal injection is not possible.

As mentioned above, there are 32 states with death penalty, but Nebraska is not one of them. Elizabeth A. Elliot from National Catholic Reporter says that on May 20, 2015, Nebraska became the 19^th state to abolish death penalty.(1) Although, capital punishment was in the state for many years. According to Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, since 1903, executions in Nebraska took place in Nebraska State Penitentiary, and until 1913 primary method was hanging. Then, from 1913 to 2008 it changed to electric chair. In 2009, state decided to make lethal injection a primary method, because electrocution was claimed to be “cruel and unusual punishment.” The execution chamber is located in the basement of the Nebraska State Penitentiary. It includes a viewing room, preparation room, holding cell and the room that houses the lethal injection bed. Nebraska’s Death Row use to be at the Penitentiary from 1903 to 2002, when it was transferred to the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.(1)

Cost

The cost of execution is one of the most important reasons why death penalty should not be legal. According to Burkhead, an average cost of execution is two million dollars per person, and it is about three times more expensive than imprisoning someone at the highest security level for 40 years. He also talks about different reasons why death penalty is more expensive than an ordinary trial, such as time (cases usually take a year to come to trial), hiring more experts, twice as many lawyers for the defense and as many prosecutors, two trials instead of one (one for guilt and one for punishment), a longer trial (three or five time longer than a typical trial). (124)

Reduction in Crime Rates

Another reason why the death penalty is a failed experiment is crime rates. Existence of execution hardly changes statistics of crime. More than that, for past 12 years, states without capital punishment showed lower murder rates than states with death penalty. According to Death Penalty Information Center, the percentage of violent crime rates states without execution dropped 7% in 1991, 46% in 2005, in 22% in 2013.(1)

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 767