Essay about Capital Punishment An Ongoing Arguement

Since the year 1608, over 15,269 people have been executed in the United States and its predecessor colonies (Smykla, and Espy). With the multitude of persons executed, there is still little evidence proving the effectiveness of capital punishment when concerning future violent crime rates. The death penalty is also costly when compared to the cost of imprisoning a violent criminal for life. With such a definitive punishment and with its finality, there have also been a large number of persons executed who were in fact shown to be innocent at a later time. Although there is a lengthy history of the death penalty in the United States, there is an immense disparity in regards to those who support capital punishment and those who wish to†¦show more content†¦There also are beliefs that Capital Punishment leads to more crime as criminals may murder witnesses to avoid being arrested and facing the death penalty, as well as executions by States devalue human life. Studies have also been completed using states with and without capital punishment as well as a comparison of crime rates during the four years between 1972 and 1976 when the Supreme Court ruled capital punishment was unconstitutional which have presented little evidence regarding capital punishment decreasing crime rates. While there is little evidence supporting the deterrence of the effects of capital punishment on crime rates, the death penalty costs a great deal amount of money when compared to a life prison sentence. In an article written in the Miami Herald by V. Drehle, regarding the cost of capital punishment when compared to life imprisonment in Florida, the true cost of each execution amounts to approximately $3.2 million or about six times the cost of what it would cost to keep a prisoner in prison for all of his or her natural life (Drehle 12A, col. 1). With such a high cost, and the overcrowding of prisons in the present, it seems hardly rationale for the exorbitant amount of spending on those criminals who have inflicted the greatest amount of grief in society. Prisons are overcrowded and budgets across the country are in distress, it is not logical or fiscally responsible to spend such a large