The death penalty also known as capital punishment refers to the termination of a criminal’s life by the state as a way to ensure social justice. Capital offenses include murder, rape, kidnapping, treason and other higher-level criminal activities that are brutal in nature. Capital punishment is a controversial topic in the media that has attracted debates by various activists and theorists who propose ideologies to justify or oppose the death penalty. The issue is argued based on the ethical, philosophical, religious and social perspectives. Crime deterrence is the most pragmatic reason provided by pro-death penalty activists (Phillips,2017). On the contrary, the value for humanity and morality principles are the major reason claimed by the anti-death penalty activists. The other reasons that affect an individual opinion regarding the issue of the death penalty include education level, gender, political affiliations, race among others.
Utilitarianism and retributive theories are examples of philosophical theories that criticize punishment by the death penalty. The proponents of the death penalty argue that the punishment is just as it inflicts a proportionate magnitude of pain that was transferred to the victim by the perpetrator (Phillips,2017). The capital offenders are hence worthy of receiving the pain passed to the victims in order to create a balance and just society. The theories that oppose death penalty emphasize that such a form of punishment encourages brutal and barbaric characters among the citizens. Capital punishment nurtures a society that is vengeful and neglects the value for human life. Several states still find capital punishment an effective method of ensuring justice for capital offenses. However, the policymakers are still entangled in an ethical dilemma regarding the issue. The negative and positive consequences of the punishment impact how the citizens view the criminal justice system. The United States is an example of the regions that still practice capital punishment (Radelet " Phillips,2018). The punishment was dominant during the pre-civilization period and some states abolished it based on moral principles. Countries that have abolished death penalty punish the capital offenses by life imprisonment.
Death penalty
The society proposes varying opinions that either support, oppose or support the death penalty under certain circumstances. The death penalty was prevalent in the pre-civilization period to prevent the possibility of the citizens to commit crimes and remain loyal to those in leadership positions. The punishment was most common due to the authoritative nature of leadership in monarchies which was a preferred form of government in the past. The democratic government has changed the nature of punishment issued to capital offenders as the policy developed should adhere to human right policies. Death penalty leads to the exoneration of the innocent citizens when not enough evidence is provided. The nature of evidence sometimes can pin down the innocent suspects due to the statistical profiling that exists in the society.
Research done in the past has revealed that gender and race are the primary variables for the support or opposition of the death penalty. The whites have a higher chance of supporting the penalty than the non-whites. For instance, the immigration policies in most of the counties focused to control the number of immigrants by the establishment of the death penalty to scare away the illegal entrants (Phillips, 2017). However, the human activists have viewed the penalty as denial of justice to the perpetrators. The human activists have termed the penalty as barbaric and show the high level of uncivilization. Several innocent deaths have occurred as a result of the penalty that can be solved using other means. The issue of racism and the death penalty are interconnected where a single race is favored when they commit crimes. The males have a higher of being sentenced to death than their female counterparts. The major crimes that attract the death penalty include murder which is mostly committed by the men than women (Phillips, 2017). Additionally, it is easier to convince the jurors that women are more fragile to emotional distress than the men. Therefore, most women have escaped the death sentence as they are assumed to have committed the capital crimes under the emotional distress (Radelet " Phillips,2018). Religion is also a factor that contributes to the individual opinion towards the death penalty. The more religious individuals tend to be against the penalty and advocate for other forms of punishment rather than death.
Political affiliation is also a factor that forms a foundation for individual opinions concerning the death penalty. Most of the Democrats are against the death penalty while the Republicans are in support of the death penalty (Phillips,2017). The liberals are mainly the minority groups who advocate for human rights. The political affiliations are affected by the gender hence the majority group in a society tend to support the death penalty as they are protected from such punishment. However, most of the modern Republicans are against the death penalty and term it as a form of injustice that provides no solution to the problem. Education level also influences the individual opinions of the death penalty. The individuals with higher levels of education have minimal support for the death penalty (Garrett, 2017). Life imprisonment is suggested as an alternative to the death penalty.
The reasons given by the supporter for the death penalty include retribution, incapacitation, law and order, and deterrence. Deterrence can be explained in the immigration context where a society applies the sentences to criminal immigrants as a way to reduce the number of asylum seekers. The issue has raised debate and the human activists have condemned the policies that aim to curb illegal immigration through the death penalty as a deterrence mechanism. Deportation to the country of origin has been given as a solution rather than deterrence by the death penalty. The supporters of the death penalty by deterrence believes that the punishment prevents other similar crimes from happening. The death sentence is meant to scare away the others from committing such offenses. Deterrence by the murder of the perpetrator is termed as a most effective mechanism of reducing such offenses from happening in the future than life imprisonment.
Law and order supporters claim that the death penalty provides an effective form of punishment for capital offenses. The murder, rape and kidnapping offenses are examples of capital offenses that attracts the death penalty. Death penalty for such higher-level offenses is supported provided there is enough evidence to convict the perpetrators (Garrett, 2017). The supporters of the death penalty as a way to enforce law and order is based on state violence and punishment ideology. The ideology is based on the instrumentalist perspective which claims the hypothesis that citizens who regard crime as a social problem tend to support harsh punishment as a way to solve the problem. The death penalty is, therefore, a harsh punishment that aims to reduce the levels of crime in society. The extent to which the victim suffered should be given to the perpetrators as a way to ensure justice in the society. Retribution is a prevalent reason given by the supporters of the death penalty. Retribution can be explained in two approaches which are ‘just deserts’ and ‘revenge’. Under the ‘just deserts’ perspective, the suffering of the victim of the capital offenses should be proportional to the nature of the punishment. By doing that, justice will be ensured to both the victim and the perpetrators. Under the view on revenge, the pain and anger felt by the victims of the capital offense should be directed towards the perpetrators. The supporter of the death penalty by revenge believe that the pain and suffering of the victims are relieved when the perpetrator is executed to death.
Incapacitation in support for the death penalty implies that the perpetrators have a higher chance of repeating the same mistake if they are not convicted (Ichinose, 2017). Therefore, the death penalty offers an effective approach to preventing the criminal from similar offenses in the future. The supporters of incapacitation ideology argue that the criminals if given life imprisonment do not stay in jail for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the offenders should be executed as they are a threat to the society. However, the supporters under incapacitation ideology tend to change their opinion when the inmate was offered no chances of parole. Parole is a form of temporary release given to the inmates where they are supposed to fulfill certain conditions to prove they have changed (Radelet " Phillips,2018). The criminals released under parole risks going back to the custody when they fail to attain the given conditions. The capital offenders are regarded as threats to the society hence should not be given any chance to commit similar offenses through paroles.
From the economic perspective, it is cost effective to terminate the life of the criminal rather than making him/her incarcerated for the rest of their lives. The states save resources that could be used to cater for the basic needs of the prisoners hence a cost-effective method of dealing with the criminals. Life incarceration is at the expense of the taxpayer who is also a victim of the perpetrators. Therefore, ending the lives of the criminals is offered as a solution that ensures justice and reduces the economic burden for the state. However, research shows that the cost of the death penalty might be higher than that of life incarceration. The supporters of a death penalty to reduce the cost tend to overlook the fact that the expenses involved in ending the life of a prison are quite higher (Daly " Wilson, 2017). That is, enough evidence has to be found before conviction which may attract higher expenses to conduct the investigations.
The common reasons given by the opposers of death penalty include the morality principles, unfairness, and the claim that innocent people could be convicted. Morality principle holds that it is wrong to punish violence with violence. The morality ideology holds that punishing a crime by a crime reflects a society that values less humanity. The culture shapes the moral values that should be upheld in a group. Therefore, the response to the issue of murder is determined by the cultural values upheld. The chain of murder and capital offenses tend to increase when death penalty is applied. The moral principles tend to be neglected by the criminal justice system that upholds death penalty. The state is termed as immoral when it kills a criminal as it is supposed to advocate for moral principles (Daly " Wilson, 2017). The fear that an innocent person can be murdered has led to the release of several criminals who had been exonerated in doubt of their guilt. The aspect can be termed to be ineffective as the criminals tend to repeat the mistakes when they are not executed.
The opposers of death penalty also suggest that such convictions should be abolished since they impact disproportionately to the minority groups. That is, the minorities are the most targeted by capital punishments than their majority counterparts due to inequality in the society. The penalty may result in increased rates of violence and homicides as it encourages higher levels of brutal behaviors in the society (Garrett, 2017). For instance, the allies of an executed criminal may continue to harm society as a form of revenge. Some of the supporters and opposers of the death penalty base their arguments on the emotional reasons.
Utilitarianism theory by John Stuart Mill and retributive theories by Immanuel Kant are used to justify the nature of the death penalty (Ichinose, 2017). Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory that expounds the concept of the death penalty from a moral perspective. The principle of utilitarianism argues that the level of punishment should create a balance between happiness and unhappiness to society (Garrett, 2017). The option that creates a greater balance should be selected for punishing the capital offenses since it will result in equality and justice to the offender and the victims. That is, if death penalty is chosen, then it should be able to show a balance of happiness between the opponents and proponents of the punishment. A state of equilibrium should be attained between the evil committed and the good felt by the victim. Crime is an act that brings unhappiness to the people. Therefore, the utilitarianism theory supports the aspect of reducing crimes as a way to create a balance between happiness and unhappiness in society. The utilitarian’s in the past claimed that the threat of the punishment has a higher potential to reduce crime through deterrence. Therefore, utilitarianism supports death penalty provided it reduces the number of crimes committed.
Another form of reducing the number of crimes as argued by the utilitarian is through incapacitation. Incapacitation is able to reduce the offender from committing a similar crime in the future by denying the person an opportunity to do so. Thus, the utilitarian support death penalty as it prevents the criminals from making similar crimes in the future. Utilitarianism also supports the rehabilitation of the offenders as a way to reduce the chances of committing the crimes in the future. The corrective mechanism should consider options that can change the character of the inmates and make them fit in the society upon release. Thus, the nature of punishment should focus to bring positive change to the character of the offender. Death penalty fails to correct the character of the offender and aim to deter the future crimes by elimination (Garrett, 2017). Furthermore, the theory states that the nature of the punishment offered by the government to control crime is viewed differently by society. The level to which the citizens believe that the punishment given is fair affects their happiness either positively or negatively (Daly " Wilson, 2017). Utilitarian argues that the most effective punishment is wrong from the moral point of view. The death penalty is an effective method to control crimes according to the utilitarianism as it considers less the moral outcomes.
The principle of equality explains the positive nature of the death penalty in promoting social justice (Ichinose, 2017). The principle of equality implies that a state of justice imbalance exists when an offense is committed. The perpetrators tend to induce a form of suffering to another person which requires an external function to equalize the crime and the suffering of the victim. The principle as argued by Immanuel Kant states that a criminal renders themselves worthy of suffering when they induce suffering to another person. Immanuel Kant states that the criminal deserves the magnitude of suffering that they inflict to the victims. For instance, the criminals of murder should be punished by murder to create equality. The equality principle correlates to the principle of retaliation which holds that the nature of punishment should be directly proportional to the suffering rendered to the victims. Therefore, the death penalty is justified for the capital offenses from the perspective of the equality principle. However, the theory states that enough evidence should be provided before exoneration in order to prevent the death of the innocent suspects (Ichinose, 2017).
The opponents of utilitarianism and retributive theories argue that death penalty is equivalent to capital punishment. Therefore, the state by conviction of the capital offenders practices another version of the capital crime that is not justified from the moral point of view. The criminal justice system that aims to convict the criminals tends to execute the innocent citizens based on statistical profiling. The opponents argue that the utilitarian and the retributive theorists tend to overstate the deterrence mechanism. They claim that the justification of incapacitation through elimination is an exaggeration of the threats posed by the offenders. Death penalty is claimed to incite people to commit crimes as a form of revenge when a suspect is innocently exonerated. Similarly, it creates a brutal society that is vengeful and tends to seek revenge on each other. The opponents claim that death penalty creates a society that considers other lives superior to others (Daly " Wilson, 2017). The value for humanity is therefore overlooked by the society that advocates for death penalty as a punishment for the capital offenders.
Conclusion
Death penalty has adverse psychological impacts on the families of both the accused and the victim. The punishment purposes to bring the criminals to justice by inflicting a higher magnitude pain similar to what they caused the victims. There are varied opinions regarding the issue as some of the citizens feel it brings the criminals to justice while others regard it as ineffective and brutal. The extent by which the citizen support or oppose the punishment is based on various grounds. There are philosophical theories that justify the death penalty and others that oppose capital punishment. However, the issue still remains a dilemma to the policymakers as they have the capability to decide on the most effective criminal justice system. Death penalty has both the negative and positive impacts hence a debatable issue for several years. Therefore, the society that practices death penalty should have enough evidence before exonerating the suspected criminals.
References
Daly, M., " Wilson, M. (2017). Homicide: Foundations of human behavior. Routledge.
Garrett, B. L. (2017). End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice. Harvard University Press.
Ichinose, M. (2017). The Death Penalty Debate: Four Problems and New Philosophical Perspectives.
Phillips, R. (2017). The McDonaldized Death Penalty: Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and American Capital Punishment (Doctoral dissertation, Eastern Kentucky University).
Radelet, M. L., " Phillips, S. (2018). Capital Punishment/Death Penalty. The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems, 2, 433.
