Advantages and Disadvantages of Death Row

The death penalty or capital punishment is the legal execution of a convicted criminal. The death penalty has been a topic of controversy around the world. Positions for or against this topic are influenced by personal beliefs, political ideologies, and cultural inclinations. Death sentences have included means such as beheadings, poisonous gas, shooting, hanging, electrocution, and lethal injection. The latter is the preferred method of administering the death penalty in most countries including the USA. Although not completely useless, the death penalty is a naïve and ineffective policy, and numerous research findings seem to invalidate its effectiveness in deterring crime. In America and its colonies, the death penalty can be traced back to the early 1600s. Crimes that were punishable by death included serious offenses such as murder to petty crimes such as shoplifting. The most common method of execution was hanging, and it was a public spectacle. Gradually, America reduced the number of capital offenses to mostly first-degree murder. This was any murder with established deliberation, wilfulness, and premeditation (CRF, 2018). The executions were also moved from public viewing to behind prison walls. Most citizens viewed capital punishment as an acceptable and deterrent method of dealing with crime. However, at the beginning of the 1700s, many theorists and philosophers started to question the rationale and ethics behind the practice. French judge and political philosopher, Montesquieu, English Quakers John Bellers and John Howard among other European theorists are credited with starting the abolitionist movement through their social commentary and writings (Dwankowski, 2018). In 1764, Italian jurist, Cesare Beccaria, wrote the essay On Crimes and Punishment which argued that there was no legal or ethical justification to take a man’s life. After this essay, movements against capital punishment gained momentum all across Europe and America. In 1794, Pennsylvania became the first state to legally define different degrees of murder and repealed capital punishment for all crimes except first-degree murder. The Jacksonian Era brought about many social and political changes, and citizens got behind abolishment of the death penalty (CRF-USA, 2012). Michigan and Wisconsin became the next states to ban the death penalty. After the Second World War, perhaps people had grown weary of wanton deaths because the abolitionist movement grew even stronger. In the 1960s, several personalities and organizations challenged the legality of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment citing it as ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment (Dwankowski, 2018). Many abolitionists challenged the Supreme Court to abolish the arbitrariness in which the sentence was administered. The Furman v. Georgia court cases of 1972 led to the Supreme Court voiding forty death penalty statutes. Some states which were still in favour of the death penalty such as Florida were given the option of making new laws. In 2015, the case of Roper v. Simmons led to the Supreme Court declaring death penalty for juveniles unconstitutional and in violation of the Eighth Amendment (CRF-USA, 2018). As of May 2019, twenty-nine US states still upheld the death penalties. According to the Criminal Justice Project of the NAACP, as of April 2019, two thousand six hundred and seventy-three (2,673) people are on death row (CNN, 2019). This backlog is mostly caused by appeals. Inmates sit in death row for an average of fourteen years before they are executed. Currently, the death penalty is reserved for the most heinous crimes, mostly murder and violent sexual assaults. It is also reserved for violent and repeat offenders (Desai & Garrett, 2018). Supporters of the death penalty argue that it is an equitable punishment that fits the crime, and it serves as a crime deterrent. On the other hand, opponents argue that death penalty is a violation of the fundamental human right to life, it is an ineffective crime deterrent, it is archaic, and is economically wasteful (Dwankowski, 2018). Below are some of its advantages and disadvantages backed by research; 

The death penalty is a fair way of dispensing justice while keeping the general public safe. An ideal society is one in which law-abiding citizens live without the constant threat of harm. Therefore, if a person decides to commit a violent crime, the necessary steps should be taken to ensure the safety of the rest of the community. According to CRF-USA (2012), arguments for rehabilitation have been made in cases like this, but statistics have shown that people who commit especially violent and wilful crimes are likely to be repeat offenders. In such cases, it is essential to maintain capital punishment as an option to create an appropriate response befitting the crime. Additionally, although extremely hard with the security measures in prisons today, the death penalty eliminates the slight chance that a violent offender would escape prison and commit more crimes. The death penalty is also cited as a deterrent against crimes. This is a point of contention for most criminologists. Typically, people will likely consider consequences before taking any action. Therefore, it would be rational to argue that potential offenders would rethink their criminal intent if the consequence is severe than (or corresponds with) the crime. However, research shows that people who are willing to commit crimes to warrant the death penalty are unlikely to be deterred by the death penalty. This could be because, such offenders are psychologically devoid of emotions and responses that ordinarily would make any other person avoid crime. However, there is evidence to show that having the death penalty as an option does deter some violence. To that extent, it is then a useful policy to have in society (ACLU, 2019). Contrarily, the statistics in the administration of the death penalty shows racial and economic disparities. In the case of Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court found out that existing laws regarding death row were ‘arbitrary and capricious’ ( Dwankowski, 2018) . Although white men killed black men more than black men killed white men, the majority of people on death row were black men. The case is still the same today. Poor people, mentally ill people, African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics are over-represented in the death row population. This is despite statistics that show that white and middle to upper-class people commit the same if not more violent crimes than poor people and minorities (Desai & Garrett, 2018). This means that death penalty is still applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner, thus contradicting the reasons for its existence. The death penalty does not make sense from a financial standpoint. Proponents argue that death penalty is cheaper in the long run than a life sentence as it eliminates the lifelong need to maintain the welfare of inmates. However, instituting the death penalty is a lengthy and expensive process. Most notably, the process includes a lot of appeals that consume hours of labour and tax-payer funded public defenders. Some attorneys are required to be specifically trained and be ‘death penalty certified’ (Desai & Garrett, 2018). In addition, collection and analysis of evidence such as DNA evidence can be extremely expensive. Cumulatively, death penalties end up being more expensive than a life sentence. The biggest argument for the death penalty is that it acts as a deterrent to violent crimes. However, research has shown that in the 1990s, homicide rates were plummeting at roughly the same rate in states with a death sentence statute and states without. According to ACLU (2019), many people commit murders as crimes of passion, under the influence of substances, or because of mental illness. As such, these people do not give much thought into the consequences of the crime before they commit it. The death penalty is an illusion to convince the public that the government is taking steps to protect them. In reality, this policy is ineffective and the government continually fails to provide alternative solutions to violent crimes. The death penalty is also unethical. The criminal justice system is in the business of rehabilitation and upholding human rights. However, the death penalty is essentially revenge. The government participates in devaluing human life and dignity, complicit with the criminals themselves (CRF-USA, 2012). Notably, no other crime carries such a sentence; rapists are not sentenced to be raped, arsonists do not have their property torched, and so on. Therefore, the death penalty is incongruent with the mandate of the criminal justice system. Besides, the Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, Inc stated that the death penalty does not provide retribution for the victims’ families. Research has also shown that the death penalty process is marred with errors, which often result in sentencing of innocent people. Apart from poor people and minorities being over-represented in death row, one hundred and twenty-three people in twenty-five states have been released from death row because they were proven innocent since 1973 (ACLU, 2019). About ten people have been wrongly executed. The justice system is not perfect. It is prone to error. However, it would be easier and fair to absolve an innocent person of wrongdoing and compensate him/her if he/she was serving a life sentence.  In conclusion, the death penalty can be attacked from different angles; moral, legal, or philosophical. The justifications for the death penalty are quite weak in the face of statistical evidence, as it shows that this policy is largely unnecessary and also unfair. Assuming that it acts as a deterrent for crimes, it is discriminatory against the poor and minorities. Violent crime is a complex and nuanced problem that requires careful and factual assessment. As such, the death penalty is a patently naïve and simplistic policy that does nothing to address the larger problem. 

References 

ACLU. (2019). The Death Penalty: Questions and Answers. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 29 November 2019, from https://www.aclu.org/other/death-penalty-questions-and-answers 

A History of the Death Penalty in America. (2012). Constitutional Rights Foundation. Retrieved 29 November 2019, from https://www.crf-usa.org/images/pdf/HistoryoftheDeathPenaltyinAmerica 

CNN. (2019). Death Penalty Fast Facts. Retrieved 29 November 2019, from https://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/19/us/death-penalty-fast-facts/index.html 

Desai, A., & Garrett, B. L. (2018). The State of the Death Penalty. Notre Dame L. Rev. , 94 , 1255. 

Dwankowski, C. (2018). The Death Penalty - A Brief History - NDLA. Retrieved 29 November 2019, from https://ndla.no/en/subjects/subject:23/topic:1:184990/resource:1:103196