Death Pealty

The death penalty is a law of retaliation known as Lex Talionis. No punishment should be an eye for an eye. According to Cesare Beccaria, the prevention of crime is more important than punishment. He believes that imprisonment should be use more often than punishment. Beccaria wanted torture punishment to be abolished. Beccaria also believe that swiftness and certainty are the most important element for deterrence. The death penalty is not a form of swiftness and certainty. Jeremy Bentham believed that we should use the utilitarian approach on crime. The punishment that is inflicted on the offender should achieve enough good to outweigh the pain. Due to the fact, that the death penalty is an immoral and anti-social form of punishment. The death penalty is not an effective form of correction. There are many circumstances why the death penalty is ineffective such as crime rate, race, cost, deterrent effect and the innocent that was wrongfully accused.

The 34 states that have the death penalty execute the most and usually have a higher crime rate. Elimination of violence in our community is important but if there is a death penalty the rates of violent crime increase. The increase of violent crime provides feedback that having the death penalty is not an effective deterrent on crime doing. The information on Death Penalty Information Center explained that about 88% of experts reject the notion that the death penalty act as a deterrent to violent crimes. There was a related study done with the states that have the death penalty and the states that do not have the death penalty. Studies show that there is not deterrent effect of the death penalty. There was a study done by Ruth Peterson and William Bailey over a period of 12 years and in that study they found states with the death penalty has a higher murder rate than states that does not have the death penalty.

Race is another circumstance that contributes to the death penalty being an ineffective form of corrections. In many of the death penalty cases race of victim and race of defendant plays a major role in discrimination. A study done in California found that if someone was to kill a white person are three times more likely to be sentences to death than those who kills a black person. Most murders are intra-racial, however, based on the race of victim in death penalty cases are whites. There were over 75% of murder victims which result in an execution of a white person. Shockingly, nationally only about 50% of murder victims generally are whites.

The cost of the death penalty is least efficient use of taxpayers' money. The death penalty cost more than a life sentence. In the Dallas Morning News on March 8 1992 indicated that the state of Texas spent an average cost of about $2.3 million which is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years' time sentences. Police chiefs ranked that the death penalty