Capital Punishment - Essay Example

Sadly, the most developed country of the world, United States has not given any stance on the abolishment of the death sentence, and the government still continues to sentence a certain percentage of the criminals to death. The question is do the governments have the right to give the capital punishment or not? The capital punishment announcement involves high costs to the post and the pre trial arrangements and therefore, in terms of the economic value, it is not a very unsound way of punishing an individual.

Therefore it leads us to one statement that is , the capital punishment should only be practiced for the rare cases, and especially it becomes more justified where the costs of rehabilitation and reform are very high. Throughout the history of the world, capital punishment has become a staple from of punishing the individuals and many societies have bowed down in front of this form of punishment. But the question that the modern age has helped to raise is that of the justification of the punishment and does state have the right to reserve this punishment for the criminals who have committed heinous crimes.

“In ancient times the method of execution was particularly bloody. In addition to crucification, the bible mentions punishments such as stoning which meant being put to death by a crowd of people throwing stones.” (Marzilli, A. (2003). Capital punishment. . hould only be awarded in the rare cases, and not in any other case, since as mentioned above the costs of the rehabilitation and reform are increasing with every day. Taking a look at the history of the capital punishment which started off with the execution as being the death penalty.

Since the word capital punishment has been derived from capitalis which means related to head, therefore in the historical times, the death penalty was announced through decapitation. However with the modernization of the world, new methods were introduced where new ways of capital punishment such as boiling to death, hanging to death, stoning, shooting, disembowelment and a few others were introduced. However now in those first world countries where the capital punishment is practiced still, they have introduced more humane methods , where they make use of the lethal injections as a method of death penalty not only it is quick but also due to its efficiency and pain free nature.

The costs involved with the death penalty are immense and they are incurred during, pre and post trial proceedings. "Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present system ($137 million per year), the present system after implementation of the reforms . ($232.7 million per year) . and a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty ($11.5 million)." --California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

(Death Penalty Cost | Amnesty International USA) According to the legislative audit in Kansas, in the year 2003, it was discovered that the costs incurred in a non death penalty case are 70% less in comparison to the death penalty case. The median costs estimated that the execution costs about $1.26 million