The Death Penalty

Abstract

The Death Penalty or capital punishment is the highest Punishment within the legal process. Within the United States, there are a total of 32 states which have a death penalty statute in their books. This particular sentence is an act set to control the crime rates within the public. This particular act primarily serves or is only available for the crime of murder. This paper will examine whether or not people continue to support capital punishment. Overall, the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the continuous support this particular sentencing has from the public. Age, political affiliation, education, marital status, religion, class identification, race and ethnicity were the key factors which helped with the findings that revolved around capital punishment. To many people, capital punishment is a simply necessity set to keep control and make sure that criminals receive what they deserve. We will use the data collected from 2008's General Social Survey. This particular survey provided the data which was useful in providing the results, which were crucial towards supporting the study regarding the favoring of capital punishment.

Introduction

Analyzing the question which revolves around the support of the Death Penalty within today's judicial system had interesting findings. One would expect that as the years passed by people would change their opinion in regards to criminal punishment, but the reality is that the people have a standing which has yet to change. As described by Samuel R. Gross(1997), the data collected from 1972 to 1996 had well above 70% of the people surveyed favor this particular method. It is granted, that this paper will focus on the data collected from 2008 and have various variables, which will assist with the finding concerning the notion as to whether the percentage is still high. The GSS was the preferred source to conduct such an analysis, since it has the best information available to answer the question from the public own opinion. Samuel R. Gross does make an interesting point concerning the fact that the people who favor or opposed such a sentence are influence by various factors which can either change one individual's stance from the other.

Capital Punishment is the legal process in which a person is put to death for a crime they committed. Capital Punishment stands among one of the oldest methods which was used to assure that a criminal would never make such a crime again. According to Hugo Adam Bedau(1998) capital punishment was brought to the states in the 17th century by the colonial governments. As of today, it is one of the biggest topics which if often debated. This particular process is often questioned, as to whether it is morally correct to do such a thing and take the life away from an individual. Overall such a punishment may be questioned; however, it is granted that this punishment is set to keep control within todays criminals.