final daft paper
Kameronm7
Assignment8.docxRunning Head: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 1
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 4
Capital Punishment
Institutional Affiliation
Student’s name
Capital Punishment
The topic that I will be researching about in this paper is Capital Punishment. Capital punishment is the execution of criminals who are found guilty of capital crimes after all legal proceedings have been concluded (Donohue, 2016). The power to execute is only available to the State. Non-state organizations and any other individual has no power to bestow capital punishment on a criminal and therefore cannot execute a person. Such cases are treated as murder. Not all crimes warrant capital punishment. There are specific crimes which are very serious such as some types of murder, fraud, treason or even adultery in some cases. These are crimes which are referred to as capital crimes.
There has been a lot of dilemma surrounding the topic of capital punishment. The question on whether death penalty should be legal or illegal still remains unsolved. It is a contemporary social issue. The aim of this paper is to carefully examine capital punishment, determine the pros and cons of capital punishment and what can be done to protect human rights as well as ensure criminals are held accountable and deterred from committing further crimes.
Capital punishment was once used in many parts of the world but the practice is now being discouraged in many countries. Some countries have totally abolished it while others are still in the process of doing so. When it comes to countries that still execute people, China takes the lead. It is closely followed by other countries such as Iran, the USA, and Saudi Arabia. In the United States, there is a constitutional ban against punishments that are cruel or unusual (McRae, 2017). Execution is considered an unusual punishment which is also very cruel. Nobody has the right to kill another human being regardless of the crime they have committed. It is in fact the duty of the State to protect its citizens and ensure they are not exposed to any danger. The reason why most people are against Execution is because it comes with premeditation and celebrations. The methodology that will be used in this paper is content analysis of 10 peer-reviewed articles which will serve as the main source of information.
Key words: Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Deterrence, Human Rights.
Annotated Bibliography.
Donohue, J. J. (2016). Empirical analysis and the fate of capital punishment. Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Poly, 11, 51.
This article talks about the case on “Glossip v. Gross where Justice Breyer gave the content that unless of the imposition of death penalty measurably sums up to one or both of the legitimate penological goals of deterrence and retribution,” then the initial death penalty is no different than a pointless and painful imposition of suffering thus rendering the whole punishment unconstitutional. The opinion by Breyer illuminates the role and position of death penalties to the offenders and the state as well.
Goel, R. K., & Mazhar, U. (2019). Does capital punishment deter white‐collar crimes? The World Economy, 42(6), 1873-1897.
This article focuses on the reasons behind capital punishment and questions whether capital punishment, either executed as a spill over effect or directly can result to a deterrent effect on white collar crimes. Through the use of data that was collected from over 150 nations and various perceptions of capital punishment including incidences where capital punishment was executed on criminals with non violent records, capital punishment is taken to be a way that corrupts and shadows the entire system including economy.
Kovarsky, L. (2016). Muscle memory and the local concentration of capital punishment. Duke LJ, 66, 259.
This article will help in the research because it talks of the current position that capital punishment holds in the society today and in many nations as well. The article talks of how the modern death penalty is disappearing in most of the countries in the world remaining in use in very few countries which have the matter in debate still. The article describes capital punishment to be a subject of casual observation rather than the object of sophisticated academic inquiry as it ought to be.
McRae, D. (2017). Indonesian capital punishment from a comparative perspective. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, land-en volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 173(1), 1-22.
The author discusses how the execution of 14 Indonesians who charged of using and trafficking narcotics left the whole nation in utter surprise. The system of capital punishment is legal in the country but it caught them by surprise that the then president was a supporter of the system and used it to execution 14 Indonesians. The author of this articles looks into the matter and finds that capital punishment has persisted in the country despite there being seven factors that determine its abolition.
Moreland, A., & Watson, D. (2016). Women’s representation and capital punishment. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 37(4), 490-513.
This article is critical in my research because it clearly identifies the gender gap that is present in the attitude of the public towards capital punishment. Most of the researchers have less attention to the influence that women legislators have on policies that are not related to gender. With this information, an argument has been ongoing on whether the gap in the literature is noteworthy for policies dealing with capital punishment. Through analysis of 125 nations where policies about capital punishment are used, representation of women is significantly correlated with the abolishment of the capital punishment system.
Rubin, A. T. (2016). Penal change as penal layering: A case study of proto-prison adoption and capital punishment reduction, 1785–1822. Punishment & Society, 18(4), 420-441.
The main points discussed in this article includes the relationship that there is between America’s emerging proto-prisons and the declination of death penalties. As many proto-prisons emerged in the United States due to the revulsion of death penalties, many states started to adopt proto-prisons independently as an alternative to curb and reduce capital offences and relatively robust capital punishment as well. In general terms, this article tries to promote the alternative understanding of penal changes.
Sarat, A. (2018). When the state kills: Capital punishment and the American condition. Princeton University Press.
This article provides information on whether Capital punishment is just and effective or not. The author of the articles asks questions on whether capital punishment deters people from committing capital offences or not. Such questions which are rhetoric sorts of critique this form of punishment showing that it is not any better than the normal punishments as it does not stop people from killing and committing capital offences. Sarat, the author also exposes the reality of state killings and that no capital punishment is taken towards the responsible members.
Seeds, C. (2018). Disaggregating LWOP: Life without parole, capital punishment, and mass incarceration in Florida, 1972–1995. Law & Society Review, 52(1), 172-205.
Seeds talks of how the past forty years, “Life Imprisonment without the possibility of Parole (LWOP),” has been transformed into a routine punishment in the United States from a marginal practice of last resort and rare sanction. Seeds through his article reveals LWOP to be a multilayered product resulting from incremental change of many indirectly and disjointed pieces which are conversant. In general terms, Seeds tries to elaborate how capital punishments can emerge as reforms made without punitive purposes and by ways that are poorly planned.
Udoudom, M. D., Idagu, U. A., & Nwoye, L. (2018). Kantian and Utilitarian Ethics on Capital Punishment. Journal of Sustainable Society, 7(1), 5-11.
The authors of this article were keen on the role of penalties in the society. They talk of how it is an incontrovertible fact that whenever an individual violates the laws, then the whole world agrees that they should be penalized. The authors however talk of the different penalties to vary the crime committed with death penalty or also referred to as a capital punishment to match the greatest offence. Death penalty has caused debates and arguments of whether it is right or wrong to be executed.
Wilson, J. P., & Rule, N. O. (2016). Hypothetical sentencing decisions are associated with actual capital punishment outcomes: The role of facial trustworthiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(4), 331-338.
The reason why this article is important is that is explains the relationship that there is between the perception of trustworthiness from faces and the outcomes of capital sentencing. The articles talks of how trustworthiness differentiates the murderers who are convicted to life sentencing from those who are sentenced to death by the use of a novel stimulus population. The data collected from the researches and analyzed showed that the perception of trustworthiness guide the decisions of individuals about legal punishment.
REFERENCES
Donohue, J. J. (2016). Empirical analysis and the fate of capital punishment. Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Poly, 11, 51.
Goel, R. K., & Mazhar, U. (2019). Does capital punishment deter white‐collar crimes?. The World Economy, 42(6), 1873-1897.
Kovarsky, L. (2016). Muscle memory and the local concentration of capital punishment. Duke LJ, 66, 259.
McRae, D. (2017). Indonesian capital punishment from a comparative perspective. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, land-en volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, 173(1), 1-22.
Moreland, A., & Watson, D. (2016). Women’s representation and capital punishment. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 37(4), 490-513.
Rubin, A. T. (2016). Penal change as penal layering: A case study of proto-prison adoption and capital punishment reduction, 1785–1822. Punishment & Society, 18(4), 420-441.
Sarat, A. (2018). When the state kills: Capital punishment and the American condition. Princeton University Press.
Seeds, C. (2018). Disaggregating LWOP: Life without parole, capital punishment, and mass incarceration in Florida, 1972–1995. Law & Society Review, 52(1), 172-205.
Udoudom, M. D., Idagu, U. A., & Nwoye, L. (2018). Kantian and Utilitarian Ethics on Capital Punishment. Journal of Sustainable Society, 7(1), 5-11.
Wilson, J. P., & Rule, N. O. (2016). Hypothetical sentencing decisions are associated with actual capital punishment outcomes: The role of facial trustworthiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(4), 331-338.
