Capital Punishment Grievous Crime

Question: Discuss about theCapital Punishmentfor Grievous Crime. Answer: Introduction Capital punishment has been a part of the legal system from ancient times to punish a person who has been found guilty of committing a grievous crime. It is a sanction imposed upon by the government according to which a person is deprived of his life because of a crime committed by him. The crimes which generally constitute capital punishment are crimes such as treason, murders, genocide espionage, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Although 103 countries have totally abolished the concept of capital punishment it is still used by fifty six countries as a punishment for ordinary crimes and six countries for the purpose of war crimes. The topic has been a subject of discussion for the past few decades in the world. The extremist believe that capital punishment is necessary in the society while the liberals believe that it should be abolished with immediate effect (Foster et al., 2017). Ronald Allen Smith had been charged with the murder of two young men who offered him a ride along with his partner in crime. The accused had shot the men in their head and admitted the same three weeks later . He did not plea for a life sentence and instead accepted the death penalty. However he later changed his mind and plead for life imprisonment but his plea was rejected and he was executed through the lethal injection process (Global News, 2017). The main purpose of capital punishment is to make sure that it sets an example before the society so that people think twice before committing any grievous crime. However, the concept has proved to be far more detriment than beneficial for the society. The media plays a vital role in instigation the emotions of public in favor of or against capital punishment (Steiker, 2015). The thesis statement of this paper is that capital punishment is not beneficial for the society and further raises the cost of the government towards its maintenance. The debate over the fact that capital punishment is just and efficient or not has been present from the time capital punishment had been introduced. The moral and philosophical arguments in relation to capital punishment have remarkably remained unchanged over the years. The issue in relation to deterrent effect of capital punishment is one of the main concepts used against the practice of capital punishment. Other oppositions which have been provided against the concept of capital punishment include aesthetic and ethical considerations and errors with respect to the judicial system arising out due to personal, political and cultural corruption. Once such punishments have been applied these kinds of errors cannot be reversed or corrected even if they have been identified. Although the purpose of this kind of punishment is to make sure that it prevents further crimes such as murders it has been far from achieving its results. It is true according to the economic theory that specific c rimes are deterred due to the introduction of punishments and penalties but in case of grievous crimes like murders and treason capital punishment has been far from effective. According to psychological theories of crime person committing grievous crimes such as murders are not in a mental state to understand what the consequences of such action might be. Critiques of capital punishment argue that human life is so very valuable that no human being can be deprived of his life even if he has been involved in a grievous crime like murder. According to the theories of punishments the main purpose of punishment is to make sure that the crime does not occur in future but capital punishment has not been able to provide ant deterrence even if it has than its ill effects overrule the benefits it provides to the society. Innocent people who have been accused due to the skills of the prosecution have and poor defense suffer death sentences and there is no way in which they can get their lives back when the fault bin the justice system is discovered. Only the accused and the victim actually knows what happened at the crime sight whether the killing accounted to a manslaughter or a murder and this fact is brought out according to the skills of the prosecution and defense. The media pays a huge role towards directing the emotions of public towards the victims family or the accused. In most cases the media takes the side of the victims family by focusing on their side of the story and therefore the society becomes emotionally in favor of death punishment without analyzing the actual facts . In the case of Ronald Allen Smith against whom a charge of murder of two young men had been confirmed the media played a similar kind of role. Here also it was seen that death punishment was used as a blunt instrument to help the society. Years after the person had been proved guilty he was deprived of his life where he had gone through significant changes in his character. The punishment just increased the cost of the government without providing any benefit to the society. According to a study conducted by university of Columbia about 68% of the total death penalties have been revered following an appeal which considered the lack of proper defense as a reason for s uch reversals. The arguments provided in favor of capital punishment states that the families of the victim suffer significant loss due to the actions of the accused which cannot be undone and thus capital punishment must be given to the accused in order to make sure that the families and the society have their faith restored in the legal system. However the supporters completely ignore the side of the accuseds family. They also suffer significant emotional break downs and financial problems as they cannot believe that there family members cannot be guilty of such a crime and often spend significant money towards the legal system till the accused is executed. Moreover it is far for convincing that capital punishment provides any benefits to the victims family as till the time all trials are over and a person is executed many years already pass and it brings an emotional change in the individuals. Thus capital punishment in this case also does not provide any benefit to the society. Racism is also one of the factors which cannot be overlooked with respect to capital punishment. It has always been reported that white people often escape the consensus of a death punishment and rarely does the sentence provided to them does gets executed. However when it comes to black people the death sentence allocated to them rarely gets substituted. This leads to partiality and defeats the purpose of equality which is one of the fundamentals on which the judicial system is based. The researcher has also observed that those who have been convicted for killing white people are more likely to be executed with respect to a death sentence as compared to those who have been convicted for killing African-Americans. The supporters of capital punishment argue that it is beneficial for the nation as the government does not have to bear the cost of providing essentials and looking after murderers and rapists. However the practical cost of maintaining capital punishment is a lot higher as compared to looking after the convicts. The cost which the government has to incur in the endless trial procedure along with maintain ethics in the way in which execution is carried out is a lot higher then providing for basic necessities to the convicts in prison. As a life is at stake the judges and lawyers put in extra effort while preparing for and addressing such issue which significantly increases the cost. A hearing involving a lethal injection process includes at least three attorneys with respect to the inmate, three assistant attorney generals, Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections director, the prison warden two law clerks and judges (Adams, 2016). All of them have to be paid by the federal or the state government and such hearings can further continue for a few hours to a few days. The average period which is taken by the judicial system from the time the sentence is provided and execution is done is about 21 years and the cost per case is in millions which is far more than then its alternative which is Life sentence without parole. According to a study conducted by Lewis and Clark Law School and Seattle University the cost of maintaining death penalties to the government is about 3-4 times more than in the case of life imprisonment. According to the study the cost of mainlining death sentence for 61 murderers was around $2.3 million which excluded the prison cost where as the cost for maintaining life imprisonment for 313 murderers was around 1.7 million. In the smiths case the tax paid by the public was unnecessarily wasted and there was no benefit provided to the society as smith was executed after a period of over a decade which evidently caused significant changes to h is character. If smith was not executed and had been provided with a life sentence instead the public money would not have been wasted and he would have served the prison community effectively. According to the social disorganization theory of crime a person indulges in criminal activities if the neighborhood of the person is not suitable and pleasant. According to the theory individuals who have a disadvantaged neighborhood acquire the traits of criminality due to their surrounding environment. Criminal activities are largely a result of conditions which are not favorable within a community. The society in which Mr. Smith resided was subjected to common use of drugs and it was found that the crime committed by him which included the murder of two young men was actually under the influence of a drug known as LSD. The convict himself asked for a death sentence instead of life imprisonment in this case which shows the mental condition of the convict. Life imprisonment would not only have been a better prospect against him but also would have saved money of the government which was wasted in reviewing the appeal made by him to change the death sentence. According to the Intelligence theory of crime less intelligent person are more likely to criminal activities than those who are intelligent. The less intelligent person are not able to achieve things in life as compared to the intelligent person and therefore they take support of crime to fulfill their needs. In this case if smith was intelligent enough he would not have unnecessarily murder two youths. Further he would have made an appeal for life imprisonment when he acknowledges the crime. Using the theory of social disorganization to analyze the root cause of criminal activities crime can be prevented and the making of potential criminals can be stopped if social actors get involved in improving the living condition and neighborhood communities. As the root cause of crime according to the theory is the neighborhood of individuals crime can be stopped if neighborhoods are improved and a favorable living condition is provided to the individuals. They would not need criminal activities to fulfill their needs and would not be gaining any criminal culture as the neighborhood would be imported leading to a crime free society. With respect to the intelligence theory of crime criminal activities can be reduced if less intelligent people are provided with opportunities and counseling. People commit crime as they feel suppressed by other intelligent people and if this feeling can be changed by social actors such as schools and other educational institutions than there would be a lot less criminals in the society. Concluding this paper it can be analyzed that capital punishment does not provide deterrence and further considerably raise the expenses of the government towards its maintenance. It does not provide any benefit to the family of the victims and moreover causes determent to the family of the accused. Media plays an important role in the society with respect to criminals. The society often sees criminals in the way they are portrait by media. Crime in the society can be prevented to a significant extent by using the social disorganization theory and the intelligence theory. If the living conditions are made suitable for the individuals crime rate will decrease automatically. References Adams, D. M. (2016). Belief and death: Capital punishment and the competence-for-execution requirement.Criminal Law and Philosophy,10(1), 17-30. Foster, C., Dodds, J. A., Brannan, S., Campbell, R., Davies, M., English, V., ... Chrispin, E. (2017). Capital Punishment.Journal of Medical Ethics,43(1), 24-25. Global News. (2017). Montana governor requested to review clemency for death-row Canadian Ronald Smith. [online] Available at: https://globalnews.ca/news/3116622/montana-governor-requested-to-review-clemency-for-death-row-canadian-ronald-smith/ [Accessed 15 Feb. 2017]. Steiker, C. S. (2015). Can/Should We Purge Evil Through Capital Punishment?.