Capital Punishment And Its Effect On Society - 1425 Words

Capital Punishment has been a topic of debate since it was reinstated in 1976. Some say that in a free society, capital punishment is an unnecessary form of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of our constitution. Others claim that capital punishment serves the primary purpose of deterring crime and punishing society’s most homicidal offenders. The biggest question when it comes to capital punishment is, is it worth it? Does Capital punishment have a deterrent effect on society? Or does it hurt more than help society? An over whelming majority of researchers have found that the death penalty not only has an effect on society but also a huge effect on the justice system. In past years research has shown that capital punishment has†¦show more content†¦In â€Å"The deterrence effect Capital Punishment: New evidence on an old controversy†, David Philips tells us that in the past researchers only looked at yearly statistics on the deterrent effect of capita l punishment. Through new research Phillips has found that there is a short-term effect on capital punishment. If publicized executions deter homicides for only a brief time, then for researchers to detect the deterrent effect they must look at weekly and monthly statics instead of yearly. Philips has shown us that the murder rates are significantly less the week after an execution has been performed. Through the research done by Jonna Shepard, her statics show that the amount of time one spends on death row before being executed has an effect on the amount of deterrence as well. The average number of years that an executed offender has spent on death row has increased from approximately 1 year in 1981 to almost 12 years in 1999(Shepard). Reasons for the increase in wait time is because prisoners on death row try to delay their executions as long as possible with multiple appeals and requests for stays. In today’s society we are all about instant gratification therefore, when someone’s wait time on death row is shorter it tends to have more of an effect on us because it is almost immediate punishment for the crime committed. When criminals have a longer wait time on death