The Death Penalty : Wrongful Execution - Essay Example

Lastly, the paper concludes by providing a brief summary of the paper’s main points, and reaffirms my position on the debate. The Debate about the Death Penalty 1. Introduction Societies use different modes of punishments to deter criminal activities and discourage future offences. Murder is a common and old offence that has continued to persist in societies, with controversial perspectives on punishment. Societies usually have high interests in preventing murder. Consequently, the death penalty might be perceived fair punishment for anyone who kills another human being.

Criminologists study the efficiency of the death penalty in deterring murders, and in most of their studies, the results seem inconclusive. This paper is an argumentative essay relaying my opposition against the death penalty, as a means of punishing offenders. As described in the paper, research indicate that the death penalty is an unsuccessful means of deterring crime, because many states without it seem to have lower crime rates. Additionally, people have varied opinions about the morality of the death penalty.

Therefore, it would be morally wrong for the state to decide for victims who are against the death penalty to punish their offenders this way. . Because of this, some people do not wish death penalty upon their offenders. Additionally, research has shown that death penalty not only violates human rights, but also heartens a culture of violence and discriminates against minorities. Those in opposition to the death penalty also argue that it not right for the state to have a right to kill anyone, relating to a denial of human right (Yorke 224).

It is also an unfair way to punish anyone because in most cases, it largely depends on the offenders’ ability to raise money to obtain the best lawyers, the offender’s race, the skills of their lawyers and the location of the crime (Flowers, 170). Existing Controversies on the Death Penalty Capital punishment has attracted controversies over its appropriateness. When the law executes an innocent person through capital punishment, then this is wrongful execution. Opponents of the death punishment argue that there are many instances when the law wrongfully executes a person, and once they are dead, nothing can be done further.

Criminologist studies have provided inconclusive results on the effectiveness of the death penalty. Most noteworthy, it remains the most appropriate way to deter would-be murders because people tend to fear death more than any other form of punishment. In addition to this, once a murderer has been killed, he/she has no chance of killing in future (Stearman 88). Therefore, the death sentence is a strict form of incapacitating the offences. Professor Ernest van den Haag, who lectures on jurisprudence at Fordham University has done extensive studies on deterrence, and has supported the death penalty as a mode of deterring murder in societies.

He says that if death cannot deter murders, then nothing would. Abolitionists agree that they