Societys changing view of capital punishment

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Society’s changing view of capital punishment

Introduction

There are three justifications for the punishment of criminals, namely deterrence, retribution and incapacitation. While deterrence prevents occurrence of other murders, retribution imposes justices on the wrongs committed. Incapacitation on the other hand affirms that the murderer can never murder again. The rates of murder cases in America have been rising. The reason behind this is something that we are not sure of.

The death penalty has been practiced in America since 1608. It has undergone transformation ranging from brutal public displays to more detached medical based executions that ensure that pain is not felt in the body. The deterrent effect of capital punishment is one of the highly contentious issues in the criminal justice system. It is the only irreversible form of punishment. Sociological methodology has been seen as a success in the capital punishment and homicide research while econometric methods have been a failure in the same investigations. It is against this background information that this paper seeks to analyze the changing societal views with regard to capital punishment (Selli, &Thorsten, 1959). Moreover, the paper outlines a major argument in society for or against capital punishment.

Thesis Statement

Capital punishment has undergone tremendous transformations over the years. Social science is responsible for the change in American debate on capital punishment, especially with regard to deterrence.

Literature Review

Michael Radelet and Marian Borg in their article, The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates give an analysis of the changing aspect of death penalty arguments in major specific areas namely deterrence, incapacitation, caprice and bias, cost , innocence and retribution. The gradual shift towards the eventual abolition of death penalty in America is portrayed by a critical insight of capital punishment’s historical and world-wide context.

The article begins by introducing the constitutional transition of death penalty. In 1972, a decision by the United States Supreme Court reversed the death penalty and all inmates under the same were resentenced to life imprisonments. However, the decision was again reversed and capital statutes were approved. By 1999, there were more than 3,500 men and 50 women on death row in thirty eight states.

The article attempts to present an overview of arguments that support the death penalty today as compared to the same twenty five years ago. It affirms that the recent arguments rely less on issues such as deterrence, cost and religious principles and that they derive their basis on grounds of retribution. Further, those in support of capital punishment today as opposed to yester years have a better insight on the inevitability of racial and class bias and innocent punishments in death penalty sentences.

Radelet and Borg suggest that the change of these arguments is resultant of social science research and that the gradual shift towards the eventual abolition of death penalty in America is portrayed by a critical insight of capital punishment’s historical and world-wide context.

They continue to explain that public opinion on capital punishment in America has vacillated over the decades. They base this statement on facts. Support for death penalty decreased through the 1950s up to 1966, when forty seven percent of the population were said to be in support of the same. Since 1982 to date, three quarters of the American public seem to be in favor of the death penalty (Bailey, William, & Peterson, 1997). However, they assert that it is important to note that those in support of capital punishment do so conditionally, that is they favor it under some circumstances.

Support for capital punishment as they observed, drop or increase variably in different states. These fluctuations in public opinion on capital punishment and the change in societal views can be explained through the examination of arguments of those who supported the death penalty twenty five years ago.

Deterrence

The argument on general deterrence as the main reason for supporting death penalty was very popular in the seventies. This hypothesis suggests that offenders must be punished in order to discourage other who might commit similar crimes. The punishment is supposed to be a clear message to potential offenders.

Radelet and Borg see the deterrent effect of punishment to be functioning on three elements namely, certainty, celerity and severity. In an elaborate manner, the argument is that people do not commit crime if they are certain they will be caught and eventual punishment to follow. Celerity on the other hand is the time elapsed between the commission of the offence and execution of punishment. Though not practically applicable, it is hypothesized that the more quickly a punishment on crime committed, the greater the deterrent effect. Thirdly, severity refers to the deterrent effect of a punishment.

In the past two decades, as these two authors have observed, scholars and the population in general have realized that severity is no longer consistent and that death penalty no longer adds to deterrent benefits. In fact, they have observed that the increase of a punishment’s severity has decreasing deterrent effects. The period 1976 and 1977 saw a total of eighty five people arrested in New York for homicide as having been previously arrested for murder (Ehrlich, 1975). One of them had four arrests for murder. Other statistics from the Bureau Justice of Statistics show that the period before 2002 saw thirty eight percent of inmates have previous felony convictions while fifteen percent had previous convictions of violence. The data was analyzed from a sample of nine thousand convicted inmates who represented about thirty three thousand cases. This observation is clear in indicating that even with the risk on being put on death row, those who commit the crime and are acquitted go ahead and repeat the offence. In other words, the death penalty seems to have no impact on deterrence as it is presumed to be the case.

There have been tremendous drops in the overall population that was in favor of capital punishment on deterrence grounds in various states of America.

Discussion

There have been numerous comparative studies on the effects of death penalty with regard to deterrence. Researchers have examined various countries that have abolished the death penalty and observed that this did not result in an increase in homicide rates. This may perhaps be viewed as a contribution to the gradual shift towards the eventual abolition of death penalty in America in view of the deterrent effect that capital punishment has.

Deterrence has been one of the major arguments that have caused the shift with regard to societal views on the death penalty. Social science embarks on presenting an analysis of clear and critical facts that are free of any manipulations and therefore scholars and other citizens are able to critically analyze their standpoint with regard to capital punishment.

Although recent arguments rely less on issues such as deterrence, cost and religious principles and derive their basis on grounds of retribution, social science provides substantiated statistics on deterrence effect on capital punishment that seem to outweigh the ideological argument on retribution, which is generally based on religious principles, racial and class bias. This explanation from a social science perspective has been able to report that observations from the past quarter a century have really contributed to the change in societal views with regard to death penalty as the statistics have clearly indicated that capital punishment as a deterrence measure does little , if any to discourage potential criminals.

Conclusion

The deterrent effect of capital punishment is one of the highly contentious issues in the criminal justice system. It is the only irreversible form of punishment. Sociological methodology has been seen as a success in the capital punishment and homicide research while econometric methods have been a failure in the same investigations.

Social science can be termed as the major basis for changing societal views on death penalty as it provides valid and reliable results with methods that present data that is not statistically manipulated and which is interpreted in light of the best qualitative information available. The value of social research is shown by the success it has achieved in demonstrating that capital punishment has not deterred homicide in any way.

References

Archer, Dane, & Gartner, R. (1984). Homicide and the death penalty: A cross-national test of a deterrence hypothesis. In Archer and Gartner, Violence and Crime in Cross-National Perspective, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bailey, William, & Peterson, R. (1997). Murder, capital punishment, and deterrence: A review of the literature. In Hugo Bedau, ed., The Death Penalty In America: Current Controversies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cloninger & Dale. (1977). Deterrence and the death penalty: A cross-sectional analysis. Journal of Behavioral Economics 6, 87–107.

Selli , &Thorsten(1959). The Death Penalty. American Law Institute, Philadelphia.

Ehrlich, I. (1975). The deterrent effect of capital punishment: A question of life and death. American Economic Review 65: 397–417.

McManus, & Walter. (1985). Estimates of the deterrent effect of capital punishment: The importance of the researcher’s prior beliefs. Journal of Political Economy 93: 417–425.

Radelet, M. & Borg, M. (2004). The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates Annual Sociological Review 13: 123-146