Evaluation of Capital Punishment as a Method of Crime Control in the USA - Research Paper Example

? CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AS A METHOD OF CRIME CONTROL IN THE U.S.A by Abstract The effectiveness of capital punishment as a method of crime control in the United States is critically evaluated in the paper. Issues such as deterrence, brutalization effect and various other controversies highlighted by notable organizations and authors are also discussed in the paper. Table of Contents I. Introduction A. Capital Punishment……………………………..…….............................4 B. Contemporary purpose……………………………………………..……4 II. Discussion A. Deterrence………………………………………………………..………5 B. Brutalisation Effect…………………………………………...………….6 C. Controversy…………………………………………………..…………..7 III. Conclusion A. Capital Punishment and Crime Control………………………..…………9 References……………………………………………………………………….10 I. Introduction A. Capital Punishment With every judicial punishment, people will have an issue with the philosophical, religious or ethical values of a person. The implementation of the new judgement system or consideration of the old one, each country will take plenty of time as they need to know about the cause and the effects of the law on the society. According to Hodgkinson & Schabas (2004), across much of the world, capital punishment remains extraordinarily flexible instrument and symbol of public policy. Though it was introduced to create an environment free of crime, the issue with it is increasing these days. Capital punishment would clearly work as a special deterrent. But it may lead to brutalisation effects in the society. While the subject of capital punishment has always involved the students of penal policy and criminology, it has also long been documented as spanning the spectrum of political philosophy (Nisbett, 1993). The issue of capital punishment is at the spirit of defining the kind of humanity essential for its citizen. As Hodgkinson & Schabas (2004) observes, while certain fundamental norms which restrict the application of capital punishment have become relatively well accepted, the question of elimination has become more and more controversial within for a such as the General Assembly of the United Nations. Global perspectives allow opportunity to trace the occurrence of the death penalty and the application of capital punishment with respect to the changeover from customary to the contemporary societies. For example, in the Chinese criminal justice system, with its unmistakable dependence upon the death penalty, it bears the impression of many conventional Chinese legal norms and values (Nisbett, 1993). B. Contemporary Purpose Capital punishments are mostly used for drug related offences. They are also used in cases of juvenile disorders and serial killers. Killing of a single serial killer or a psychopath would certainly deter various other crimes caused by them (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). Capital punishments have received much publicity and it has welcomed lots of criticisms. II. Discussion A. Deterrence Considering the article on abolition of capital punishment by Amnesty International (2013), capital punishment expands on disagreement of four points in the non-governmental organization’s operation for the capital punishment abolishment: Discrimination, Deterrence, Cruelty and Irrevocability. It draws attention to the discrimination done between the minorities and the upper class people. The deterrence from crime, a factor argued by advocates of the death penalty, is not promoted by capital punishment. The article hence tries to egg on the entire abolishment. 1 Many political leaders also regard deterrence of crimes as the only reason for implementation of a capital punishment. 2 Capital punishment is also considered to be constitutional by the law enforced by the Supreme Court in 1976 (Amnesty International, 2013). The courts have confirmed that the main purpose to prescribe capital punishment by the state legislatures is for deterrence. There is an enormous variation among deterrence in the states. The fresh deterrence studies analyse data of the complete era since the resumption of executions in the U.S. following the 1973 decision in Furman v Georgia.3 The criticism of these new studies are bolder than the original body of studies by Ehrlich (1975). Some scholars claim that commutations, exonerations and pardons cause increase in murders and other crimes.4 Few of them say that even murders of excitement, in the middle of the most ridiculous lethal acts, can be deterred.5 Others believe that the deterrent effects of implementation are so powerful that it will decrease robberies and even some non-violent offense.11 Thus, the deterrent effects of capital punishment in fact are boundless (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). If deterrence is the only priority, then the other moral and legal priorities would be losing focus (Nisbett, 1993). Large execution may cause a very negative effect on the citizens. Any execution would have a lot of publicity around it and this is a great influencing factor in effects caused by them (Radelet and Akers, 1996). However in certain states, where the executions occur in a large amount, the publicity factor would be lesser. The method of execution also seems to encourage deterrence factor. Electrocution seems to increase deterrence than lethal injection. The characteristics of individual are also studied, but the results does not show any variation based on the characteristics of individual across states (Radelet and Akers, 1996). B. Brutalisation Effect Although deterrence is one strong reason behind capital punishment, the effect of brutalisation is another term of debate (United Nations, 1968). A death sentence would change the climate into a violent one and it would create a huge impact among the public.The average between large executions in deterrent states to small execution in non-deterrent states is considered in order to determine the total deterrent effect of capital crime in the United States. When synchronized and controlled, the law of revenge is also collectively useful as it hardens the social harmony against law breakers and almost certainly is the only option to the troublesome private vengeance of those who feel harmed (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). Amnesty International (2013) emphasizes that capital punishment is “old-fashioned punishment” in the United States, as the value of life will not be considered with this act. They advocate a simpler punishment than this, which makes a person live the life in a superior way rather than end up committing more crimes. Amnesty states that death penalty is always inhuman, cruel and degrading. A public execution can create a violent situation among the public and this may lead to negative situations like encouraging them in subsequent violent crimes (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). Although deterrence seems to be a convincing answer for capital punishment, the degree of brutalisation has to be certainly considered. The act of execution would be related to killing an individual for avenging grievance (Amnesty International, 2013). This type of punishment would certainly alert the criminals and would inculcate some fear in them for committing heinous crimes. In sharp contrast to Amnesty’s standpoint, Bowers and Pierce (1980) advocate that in order to get the criminals into serious fear, the government must bring more capital punishments. When the execution rate is often more than the threshold value, the deterrence effect would soon begin to overcome the brutalisation effect. Capital punishment would decrease the number of murders and hence the link between deterrence and brutalisation is an important factor to study the effect of capital punishment (Bowers and Pierce, 1980). C. Controversy In seventy to eighty per cent of the cases, there has been no considerable decrease in the number of murders and this would cause unnecessary deaths of criminals (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). In this case, the viewpoint of the policymakers to use capital punishment as deterrence is questioned. There are lots of psychologists and criminologists who have been sharing their view on capital punishment. They did a thorough analysis on the crime patterns across various states and also they studied the capital punishment's effect on murders (Hodgkinson & Schabas, 2004). A research was undertaken to study the response of criminals to the threat they had received from punishment. The observations were made in various scenarios over a period of time. Various scenarios across different states were considered for the analysis. Multivariate regression analysis was made to separate the effect of murder (Hodgkinson & Schabas, 2004). Moreover, a variety of factors like time spent in prison, execution, conviction were considered in order to bring out the effect (Cohen & Nisbett, 1994). The majority of the economic studies showed deterrence effect on the crimes. But the sociology studies did not prove much reduction in crime rate. There are also wide differences in the application of penalty among the states. Some states may deter murders while others would not show any difference (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). The execution method also plays a very important role in deter ration. The crimes are also classified and the crimes that are eligible for death also vary from state to state (Chressanthis, 1989). What’s more, the number of death sentences executed by the states also varies. Even though there may be more death sentences granted by the state, the actual execution rate would be substantially less. Even though there are a number of methods of execution, only few are authorised. The various methods of execution include lethal injections, hanging and electrocution 6. In order to better understand the deterrent effect, four aspects can be considered. The first would involve the measurement of response of murder rates to deterrent variables (Hodgkinson & Schabas, 2004). The second would involve the relation between arrest rates to deterrent variables. The third would involve the effect of second equation and the probability of capital sentence. The last would involve the association between final deterrent variable and probability of execution. The results are striking after the analysis. The final conclusion is that though the capital punishment may deter murder in some states, it causes no impact in others (Hodgkinson & Schabas, 2004). There are also incidences where the capital punishment has increased the murder rate. Murder rate has a positive relationship with robbery rate and assault rate (Eysenck, 1970). There is also a relation between the country's population and the murder rate (Cohen & Nisbett, 1994). Communities with lower per capita income are less vulnerable to crime rates as there is a lesser opportunity for these crimes. Hence per capita income is a significant factor in encouraging murder (Journal of Criminal Law, 1969). The population concentration in the age group of ten to nineteen also plays a major role in murder rate. When the indifferences are huge, people are more vulnerable to be attacked by people with comparatively lower resources. Murder also occurs at places with higher population. III. Conclusion A. Capital Punishment and Crime Control With the lines from the poet Lucretius who made the statement centuries before the birth of Christ, every person should be punished for each illegal act done by him. As it is the duty of human to consider life as a valuable entity and harming people for their happiness should be treated as crime (Sellin, 1959). The deterrent effect of capital punishment has been the number one topic of debate. Crime is often correlated with a term "price". The price is often a government controlled term and can mean a threat of punishment. There have been several studies on the deterrent effect of the capital crime. Although, there are a handful of cases with positive effects, there are many cases with no significant impact (Chressanthis, 1989). Any barbaric activity would in turn lead to another barbaric one. Even though there is a strong support from state legislature for capital punishments, there is insubstantial evidence to strongly prove the incidence of decreasing murder rate (Espy, 1980). This may not prove to be a right judgement in all the cases. Among all the states of the US, only six states have shown some positive effect of deterrence for capital punishment (Cohen & Nisbett, 1994). In the rest of the states, execution has in fact led to an increase in murder rate rather than suppressing it. Furthermore, there is no significant improvement in all the other states in the issue of capital punishment (Lawyersnjurists.com, 2013). If the government follows a barbaric approach to bring in law and order, it may definitely cause a negative effect on the society. Hence, it is apparent that although capital punishment is generally considered as inhuman, there is no better and practical alternative to capital punishment for heinous crimes. Nonetheless, capital punishment should be minimised and alternatives sought for effective crime control in the US in the near future. References Amnesty International (2013). Abolish the Death Penalty, available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty, [Retrieved 4 Apr, 2013] Bowers, William and Glenn Pierce (1980). "Deterrence or brutalization: what is the effect of executions?" by e, Crime and Delinquency, Oct. 1980, pp. 453-484. Cohen, D. & Nisbett, R. (1994). Self-protection and the culture of honor: Explaining Southern Violence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 551-567. Chressanthis, George A (1989). Capital Punishment and the Deterrent Effect Revisited: Recent Time-Series Econometric Evidence, 18 J. Behav. Econ. 81. Ehrlich, Isaac (1975). The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death, 65 American Economic Review 397 Espy, M. W. (1980). "Capital punishment and deterrence: what the statistics cannot show," by Crime & Delinquency, Oct. 1980, pp. 537-544. Eysenck, H. J. (1970) Crime and Personality, 2nd edn, rev. London: Paladin Hodgkinson, Peter & Schabas, William A. (2004). Capital Punishment: Strategies for Abolition, Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science (1969) p.141. Lawyersnjurists.com (2013). Capital Punishment: A Critical Issue, Available at http://www.lawyersnjurists.com/articles-reports-journals/others-articles-reports-journals/capital-punishment-critical-issue/, [Retrieved 2 Apr, 2013] Nisbett, Richard E. (1993). Violence and U.S. Regional Culture, American Psychologist, 48:441-449 Radelet, Michael and Ronald Akers, (1996). "Deterrence and the death penalty: the views of the experts," Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 87, no.1 pp. 1-16. Sellin, Thorsten. (1959). The Death Penalty, Philadelphia: American Law Institute United Nations (1968). Capital Punishment, a United Nations Study, Available at http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/docs/1995/e1995-78.htm, [Retrieved 3 Apr, 2013] Read More