The Death Penalty in Modern Society - Essay Example

Death Penalty Death penalty as an instrument of legislative and judicial ity often causes debates in the modern society. Model of jural state implies an absolute balance of order, civil freedoms and obligation, overall legal control and social protection, prevention of various crimes. On the one hand, capital punishment contradicts with principles of morality and humanity as obligatory for jural state. If to talk about the real function of death penalty, it is obvious that it would be fair if it is used only in some cases of really awful crimes. However, the law is the same for everyone and it is not possible to make death penalty applied only sometimes. There can be just a kind of crimes. when it should be applied. However, this creates a risk of the innocent killed. The issue remains controversial and now the every country is to decide if to use it or not. The main criterion is, of course, the effectiveness of death penalty. Abolition of capital punishment is a major term for European Community members. The same refers to economic and political partners of EC such as Ukraine, Russia or Croatia. On the other hand, this type of punishment was not abolished in the USA. First of all, relationship between homicide rate and deterrence should be identified. Till the end of 1970th in the United States cross-state comparison of homicide rates was applied. This approach did not allow identifying regional, ethnic, age differences of crimes throughout the country. Considering federal structure of the USA, the statistic tool should be oriented on regional variety and deterrent effect measurement. According to Paul Rubin, multiple-regression analysis meets the above requirements better, because it is applied to counties. “The analysis then can implicitly calculate the effect of each execution on the number of homicides that would otherwise have occurred.” (Rubin, 2002) This method of analysis even deals with a large discrepancy in date of crime commission and execution, which varies up to 10 – 15 years. Besides, results of the research reflect demographic, ethnic, sex, and age characteristics of the counties. This statistical tool proves deterrent effect of the death penalty in all over the country. For example, 95% confidence interval estimate reveals reduction of homicides by 8% - 28%. Nevertheless, the death penalty does not imply socially desirable deterrence. Robert Cottrol makes a historical overview of this type of punishment in the United States. The factors of publicity, criminal statistics, and method of execution are of primary importance. Attitude of American citizens towards execution was specific due to historical differences in socio-economic development and political system. Thus, death penalty rate was the highest from the beginning of the Great Depression until the end of 1930th. Economic crash promoted a sharp growth of crime rates and embittered social world outlook of ordinary citizens. Death penalty was considered as the only efficient prevention of homicides, gangdom, dry law enforcement and large-scale economic corruption. Electrical chair was firstly applied in the USA, as hanging had been considered inhuman and dishonorable. In postwar period annual number of executions was quickly decreasing from several hundreds up to 2 ones in 1967. Economic flourishing, political stability and broadening of African American citizens’ civil rights partially decreased homicide rates. As a result, the Supreme Court lifted moratorium on death penalty as unconstitutional. “Social scientists who studied the issue of deterrence in the 1950s and 1960s could find little or no evidence that capital punishment deterred murders.” (Cottrol, 2004) Within the same period public support for the dearth penalty also essentially decreased. Nevertheless, in 1970th – 1980th homicide rates and major crimes throughout the country grew steadily. The proponents of the dearth penalty found a reliable argument for its renovation. Isaac Ehrlich’s innovative statistical approach proved deterrent effect of execution on homicide rate. This statistics is interesting only for criminalists, police officials, layers or legislators. The men in the street would like to know and watch positive impact of capital punishment on their everyday life. In this case, the people can be separated in two groups: back-enders (conservatives) and front-enders (liberals). Back-enders are devoted followers of death penalty, long terms of imprisonment, restricted number of amnesties. They usually do not support human rights organizations and parole boards, which attempt to reduce terms of imprisonment for definite types of crimes. On the contrary from the above group, front-enders regard legal education, gun control, prevention/intervention strategies, policing etc. as efficient means against growth of crime rate. According to them, citizens’ tax payments must be spent for support of different rehabilitation facilities, social centers for AA teenagers, promotion of drug treatment and control over young offenders. David Anderson discovers cost-efficiency of crime prevention and death sentences from the standpoint of ordinary taxpayer. Within the period of 1984 – 1994 taxpayers’ bill for criminal justice almost doubled, i.e. grew up to $93.8 billion. “The number of convicts admitted to the nation’s state and federal prisons in a year swelled 120 percent, from 246,260 to 541,434, boosting the total incarcerated 116 percent.” (Anderson, 1997) Thus, increase of taxpayers’ bill does not imply growth of citizens’ safety and crime reduction as a result. As follows, percentage of death penalties does not significantly affect crime or homicide rate. The author makes rough calculations of averted and inevitable crimes in order to test measures offered by back- and front-enders. For instance, individual murder costs circa $2.4 million and one arson is worth of $50,000. Long-term imprisonments often do not prevent inmates from repeated commission of serious crimes. For reeducation of the offenders specialized social support, living standards and leisure, expensive social multicultural programs are required. This argument proves that back-enders’ strategy is not flexible enough to consider high social dynamics in US multicultural society. Besides, in the USA death sentence procedure has obvious faults, as percentage of innocently sentenced is rather high. According to Rob Warden, it makes 5.9% from the total number of sentenced to death penalty in Illinois. This statistics index was assumed as a basis for Illinois Death Penalty Reform of 2003. At present the procedure of investigations is under supervisors’ control. Special attention is paid to false confessions and documented mistakes. Before the middle of 1990th crime and homicide rates in Ney York were very high. In 1994 new Police Commissioner William Bratton introduced an innovative strategy, which showed how taxpayers’ costs could be efficiently redirected from financing of the sentenced to death for crime reduction in the large city. Precinct commanders had weekly meeting, where they discussed situations in their departments, using decision-making strategies. NY city dwellers involuntarily took part in “quality of life” campaign intended to prevent minor crimes, hooliganism and decrease crime rate among the youth. “Stop and frisk” procedure was simplified. Gun control was strengthened. As a result, crime rates in NY reduced by 13% within three following years. These facts prove that death penalty is not an obligatory part of the modern juridical system. Bibliography 1. Adler, S. J. (2009). Race, Class, and the Death Penalty: Capital Punishment in American History Journal of Southern History, 75 (4), 1117 - 1121. 2. Anderson, C. D. (1997). The Mystery of the Falling Crime Rate. The American Prospect, 32 (7-8), 49 – 59. 3. Cottrol, R. J. (2004). The Death Penalty: An American History. Stanford Law Review, 56 (6), 1641 - 1649. 4. Galliher, M. J., Galliher, J. F. (2001). A “Commonsense” Theory of Deterrence and the “Ideology” of Science: The New York State Death Penalty Debate. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 72 (8), 307 - 312. 5. Grant, S. (1998). A Dialogue of the Deaf? New International Attitudes and the Death Penalty in America. Criminal Justice Ethics, 17 (2) 19 - 24. 6. Rubin, P. H. (2002). The Death Penalty and Deterrence. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 82(1), 10 -12. 7. Warden, R. (2005). Illinois Death Penalty Reform: How It Happened, What It Promises. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 95 (2), 381 - 386. Read More