The Death Penalty

The Death Penalty

The topic of death penalty is one that is greatly debated in the United States. The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, "is the infliction of death upon a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offence," according to Wikipedia. In some peoples opinion the death penalty removes criminals that may act in the same manor if released and is a deterrent for other criminals therefore lowering the criminal activity in horrific crimes such as murder. While the cost to execute a criminal is extremely high, there are 38 states in the United States that allow the death penalty. Depending on the state, there are many different aggravating factors for capital punishment and those crimes are knows as capital offences.

Capital punishment has been practiced in every culture at some point in history. The forms of punishment differed from stoning people, hanging people back in the early days of civilization to lethal injection that is currently used today in the United States. The death penalty has been abolished in European and South American countries. The United States, being a nation with a representative government, shares the practice of capital punishment with countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. The United States is receiving pressure from other democracies, as well as international human rights groups asking the United States to abandon its practice of the death penalty.

The death penalty has not been something that was a constant in the history of the United States. During the past two centuries, the death penalty has fallen in and out of the public favor as it is continually debated. The first legal execution of a criminal occurred in 1622, before we were the United States and was still in colonies. As the government started to be created so did the laws about capital punishment, but executions still occurred. During the 1700s there were laws put into order, and the bill of rights was ratified regarding the use of cruel and unusual punishment, but during that time capital punishment was universally accepted. After the American Revolution some legislators removed the death penalty as a punishment for many crimes. During the beginning of the 1900, government officials put and end to public hanging and reasoned that it was best to conduct execution in prisons, away from the public. Also, during this time the way to execute went from hanging to the "more humane" way, by electrocution. The periods following the Civil War and World War I included an increase of the number of states that allowed the death penalty as well as the number of people executed, but the reaction following World War II was extremely different. When the United States found out about the thousands of Jews who were put to death, the government felt wrong in putting its citizens to death.

As the United States grew and acquired