Position Paper: Ban of Capital Punishment in the United States for Convicted Criminals - Essay Example

The present study focuses on the debate of the possibility of ban of capital punishment within the range of punishments meted out to convicted criminals in the United States and discusses the evidence and arguments in support of the statement. Capital Punishment should be banned in the US: Arguments and Evidence: Banning the capital punishment would enable US to work more in tune with the global community. Such a ban might also allow other countries to leave the criminals so that they can return to the US.

It is also a matter of fact that inconsistent number of people might be tried as a result of capital punishment in the country which might even affect the differences in color of people and issues like races. Thus, a fair application of the method is necessary, without which banning seems to be appropriate. Moreover, there have been several cases where it has been found out that individuals suffering death penalty had actually been innocent. “It is estimated that as many as 25 people have been wrongfully executed in this century in the United States alone”, that also project towards need for ban of this method (“The United States Should Ban the Death Penalty”).

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law” and they also believe that the right to kill individuals should not be taken by the state itself (“The Case Against the Death Penalty”). ACLU also regards that capital punishment is unkind and abnormal. With the application of this method, the individual gets deprived of the chances of any new law or evidence assisting him/her to get relief or prove innocence.

It is also mentioned by the ACLU that a lot of resources like the time and energy of courts are wasted as a result of this policy (Bedau). Studies have been focused on whether death penalty has the ability to lower the rates of crimes in a country like the US. It has been discovered that in New York, the death penalty could not lower the rates of brutal crimes. On the other hand, the costs of a death penalty are found to be huge, about 2.3 million dollars that counts to almost three times more than what would be required for prisoners (“Capital Punishment Essay – We Need the Death Penalty”).

The concern of the wrongly judging convicts and thereby posing the punishment of death penalty on them proves to be a significant issue in this context of the debate. As studies of Zimring reflected on, the “twentieth century history of capital punishment is littered with confirmed or contested cases of wrongful execution and a much larger collection of persons revealed to be innocent while under the sentence of the death” (Zimring 157). According to the studies conducted by criminologists like William Bowers, it has been focused that the society seems to be abused more with the treatment of capital punishment that eventually leads to more crimes.

States that do not apply the capital punishment have been discovered to have lower rates of murders than in the states that apply the severe form of punishment. It is also menti