Capital punishment
Capital punishment is also known as death penalty whereby the person who has broken the law is given a death penalty after he has found guilty by a court responsible for crime cases (Siegel and Worrall, 2018). This particular mind boggling method of punished can be differentiated from extrajudicial executions which are conducted illegally without following the law. Capital punishment can also be termed as death penalty and the two words can be used interchangeably, although penalty of death is not conducted immediately after a legal process of law. How are criminal justice systems working together to address the issue of capital punishment?
Research Design: The researcher has utilized an investigative research method. This Method will be convenient since it will assist the research design will be beneficial as it will aid the scholar to generate a dynamic hypothesis that will be used in future similar studies. This examination will target law enforcers worldwide. More precisely, a sample will be realized by using random sampling to derive a representative sample from law enforcers and scholars. A participant needs to have a varying experience in all various fields of law enforcement in the age of 25 to 40 years. Secondary and primary data will be used in this investigation.
Qualitative data will be collected through personal interviews and administration of open ended questions. Similarly, Prime individuals from particular leading law enforcement agencies will provide their views on the issue of capital sentences through interviews. Quantitative data will be composed through surveys administered to the selected populace.
Historical overview: Substantially, Murder and violence is not a new thing here, it has been there before any recorded evidence of human history. Legal killings, normally known as executions can be traced back for about 4000 years.Pople of Babylon were amongst the first individuals to legalize death penalties for as methodology of punishment for doings that were considered grave by the society. Subsequently, Capital punishment for actions seeming inappropriate by the society gained fame and were widely accepted by other societies which exercised some rulings to allow such a norm.
Capital punishment is nowadays perceived a legalized method of punishment for a transgression conducted by a victim. Earliest methods of carrying out a death penalty were through exclusion where a victim was forbidden from the presence of the general community. This method was quite common among the Greek people. The method eventually resulted into the death of an individual, since they were denied access of the basics of life such as food, shelter, making them search for such needs elsewhere, far away from the community contact. The individuals encountered wild animals and other violent aliens and therefore, the form of amendment eventually led to death. This was the beginning of the development of more comprehensive direct methods of carrying out death executions. As of now, there are very complicated technological advances that are utilized mainly for capital punishment i.e. injection of lethal drugs, electrocution etc.
Such killings, following history, were done publicly and members of society were allowed to attend in large numbers to witness criminals being executed. The damaged bodies of such victims were displayed openly until they decomposed.However,such practices were expelled in England in the year 1868 though they have been continually carried out in other parts of the world such as the United States Of America till the year 1930.
In the late 20th century, public opinions arose heated discussions of whether executions should be carried out openly and even be aired on televisions and other social media platforms. Guatemala case that was displayed on television brought about such debates. From the start of 1990s Open killings of criminals have taken place in over 20 countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Iran. This practice has been rejected and doomed by the United Nations Human rights. United Nations human rights argue that such practices are not in line with the dignity of humans. In various nations, death sentences are not carried out immediately after they have been imposed by court rulings, they are delayed for a while to allow time for appeals by the convicts. Prisoners awaiting such exactions live in a popular term known as death row in countries such as the United States and japan. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
How systems address death penalty: The criminal justice system of American argue that death penalty is cold hearted and is a violation of human rights and the constitution that forbids brutal and unpopular methods of penalizing a criminal and same protection of the law for all individuals. Additionally, the systems argue that the government has no right to murder individuals whatsoever, more so when celebrations time allowances accompany the executions in them ask of law or the mask of caring for its own people. Prejudiced and indiscriminate killings have also been questioned. Death penalties are intolerable and the government should not impose itself the right to murder individuals. It denies an individual his/her civil rights and is not in line with the basic values of rule of law.
Death sentences do not allow the law to take its course. It is carried out randomly and once it has been carried out, it cannot be reversed and therefore forever denies the convict a chance to amend his/her ways or even benefit from future constitutional amendments and even new evidences that uncovered that might be favoring them in one way or another or even the reversal of the penalty. Constitutional right of individual’s equal treatment and protection is overlooked because of the random application and discrimination. It is executed unreasonably esp. to individuals who have offended the white man and are from a different ethical background, or even the poor and the illiterate and is normally focused on a certain geographical locations in the countries involved.
Individuals who are against death penalty practices doesn’t mean that they insensitive to the murder victims, however to shows lack of regard to the life of humans. Killing by the government shows how careless they are with the life of humans. The life of human beings is valuable and once taken it cannot be reversed. A country that legalizes murder is debauched. It raises violence and brutality than rule of law and reasoning and the answer to complicated problems facing the society. What is funny is that most of the victims of murder to don’t verify murder as a means to gain justice of their loved ones. However legislators and prosecutors have ignored this sufferers and furthered their agendas by politicizing the opinions of death sentence using the victims.
Impacts to death to society and criminal justice organizations: In theory, death sentences are barbaric and biased and are not equitable in real life world. Capital punishments should be banished through all means and the society at large should strive to see the end of this barbaric practice(Bottoms and Tankebe,2012). Legislations and advocacies in the getting rid of capital punishments are encouraged. The antagonism amidst supporters and opposers of capital punishment is really open esp. when matched with other forms of discussions. An individual who favor death sentences believe that it keeps crimes at bay and do not include the factor of taking somebody’s right of living.Thos individuals who against it on the other hand have their own reasons.
They argue that nobody on the earth the right to take on other person’s life or rather denies a person the right to live including the government. Their argument is that what’s worse than the death sentence is to let the criminal live with the discomfort of the crime they committed rather than killing them. Threatening a convict with capital punishment does not mean that they won’t commit the crime. Another argument of Death sentence opposers is that the risk that is involved in killing an blameless individual is very high. This form of argument from both sides has often been heated with both parties holding demonstrations on the jails and court streets when heavy cases are ongoing. A Global poll that was conducted in the year 2006 shows that fifty two percent of the population in the world favor capital punishment while in the US, the number is quite higher, sixty five percent.
Communities that regard life do not deny individuals their life to live (Niven and Donnelly, 2020). Executions are violent public display that shows an authorized killing. It indicates a society that endorses murder as a way of solving problems of a society. The worst case scenario is the killing that involves citizens and kids. All around the globe, Administrations have tried to defend such lethal killings by arguing that they will bring rest and peace to the society. They have tried to justify blind benefits to individuals. The remunerations of such official killings include sham, more hatred and ethnicity. The shedding of blood and damaging society’s democracy is evident.
Current practices on Capital punishments: Since the start of the year 2015, over 20 different nations have formulated 59 varying laws that talk about government systems of death sentences. New trends include raising or bringing down factors that aggravate capital punishment, changing the methods of carrying out the death sentences, modifying the trial methods and procedures(Quinlan,2016). The laws have also been changed to line with the hearing process outcomes of a convict and reversing all the practices completely.
Over the past years various rulings in the rulings of supreme courts of United States have overlooked the punishments by death penalties. The rulings have done away with death penalties for convicts with mental problems and young law breakers and even for rape cases whose intentions were not murder. Each procedural ruling indicates that such killings are not in line with the constitution and it’s unusual and what’s more is that it’s cruel (Atkins v. Virginia, 2002).
The courts have also ordered juries to find enough evidence that tie a defendant to a death punishment. The Delaware Supreme court decided to do away each capital punishment stating that it violated the 6th amendment(Palmer,2019). The attorney general of Delaware declared that he was not changing that excision and legislation will be required to reverse the decision. Supreme court of Washington has also taken down the capital punishment on 2018.This is among the many times the courts have ruled against death penalties stating that they are unlawful because they are arbitrary, biased and involve racial discrimination.
Criminal justice system in death penalties: A blue ribbon committee was created in the year 200 to guide death penalty methods. The members of the committee included opposers and supporters of capital punishment practices. Members included Liberals, conservatives, democrats and republicans. Members had a varying experience with all the areas of criminal justice(Kramer et al,2017).Committee members included, Judges, legislators, police officers, scholars, politicians and also journalists. The inspiration behind all these individuals was that the conduct of capital punishment was highly flawed and therefore questionable. Their agenda was to go beyond political and philosophical barriers in the conducting of death penalties.
The committee produced an compulsory justice in the year 2001(Kramer et al,2017).Their justice system included 18 changes to the capital punishments which included the agreement endorsements of this noteworthy, and unusually assorted, assembly. The changes saw that courts don’t neat death sentences without enough evidences. This has narrowed down the antagonism between advocates and opposers of capital punishment. Amidst year 2002 and 2001 university of Columbia release a report that was termed as “A broken system”. It had analyzed errors in Capital cases between 1973 and the year 1995.Such errors had raised public concern. Federal courts rejected 75% of capital cases claiming that they had gross errors. The study analyzed the cases before the presentation the anti-terrorism and Capital punishment act before the year 1996. The acts narrowed the power of federal courts to asses such cases once more.
Improvements :Substantially raising the resource base in the court systems can see things run smoothly in Criminal rulings and also in the application of capital punishments. Enough evidences will gathered and legal counseling’s will be carried out accordingly.Jutice departments have received a fifty percent increment in personals and over 300% budget increment from 1981 to 1992. The justice department has increased FBI personnel, DEA agents, prosecutors and also judges.
Most lethal and armed law breakers are targeted through a project known as Trigger lock which is a conjoined effort amidst the government and prosecutors. The project made over 6000 arrests on its first year of activities( Simes,2019). Tough laws have seen many armed law breakers being arrested and locked in cells minimizing and checking continued crimes in the streets. All this has happened on the first year alone. And this is just the first year of this effort. The battle against armed crimes is enhanced due to the international shift in the increased resources from other investigative departments. The community itself is helping legislators and other law enforcers reclaim its streets. Such approach is really working and it’s the futures promise.
Overall: For the past years, legislatures all around the globe gathered to support death penalty. Such claims were gathered voters all over during the 1990s.Such claims were appealing and raised fears and this raised support for Capital punishment to eighty percent. The drawback here was the failure to address the safety of citizens(Udoudom,2019). The number of public officials that support death penalty is increasing despite its negativities on the public view.
Technology:DNA discoveries by Frumkin have balanced against utilization of death sentences since they have seen a lot of biases, delicateness of realibility of prosecution proofs over years(Bohm,2016). Willingham is an example of a case of ameaningless execution of an innocent person.After his death,scientific breakthrough indicated more evidences from the crime scene that showed his innocence. Willingham’s scenario is emotional because he was murdered for arson claims on his kids he did not commit.Proffesionals indicate that the fire was not intentially started.Tech breakthroughs are the biggest challenge to death sentences.
The issue of capital punishment is raising heated debates between supporters and opposers with both sides having their own reasons that support their cases. Generally, most individuals have criticized the form of punishment arguing that it’s barbaric and does not show respect to the human life.However,if it must be applied then, it should be systematic and logical and accompanied with enough evidences that tie victim to a certain murder cases.
References
Bohm, R. M. (2016). Deathquest: An introduction to the theory and practice of capital punishment in the United States. Taylor & Francis.
Bohm, R. M., & Haley, K. N. (2017). Introduction to criminal justice. McGraw-Hill Education.
Bottoms, A., & Tankebe, J. (2012). Beyond procedural justice: A dialogic approach to legitimacy in criminal justice. The journal of criminal law and criminology, 119-170.
Cole, G. F., Smith, C. E., & DeJong, C. (2018). The American system of criminal justice. Cengage Learning.
Kramer, J. H., Ulmer, J. T., & Zajac, G. (2017). Capital Punishment Decisions in Pennsylvania: 2000-2010: Implications for Racial, Ethnic and Other Disparate Impacts. Ethnic and Other Disparate Impacts (September 2017).
Niven, D., & Donnelly, E. A. (2020). Who challenges disparities in capital punishment?: An analysis of state legislative floor debates on death penalty reform. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 1-28.
Palmer, S. H. (2019). Out-of-Control Criminal Justice: The Systems Improvement Solution for More Safety. Theory in Action, 12(3), 192-197.
Quinlan, M. (2016). ‘Such Is Life’: Euthanasia and Capital Punishment in Australia: Consistency or Contradiction?. Available at SSRN 3405119.
Siegel, L. J., & Worrall, J. L. (2018). Essentials of criminal justice. Cengage Learning.
Simes, J. T. (2019). Out-of-Control Criminal Justice: The Systems Improvement Solution for More Safety, Justice, Accountability, and Efficiency.
Udoudom, M. D., Bassey, S. A., Okpe, O., & Adie, T. (2019). Kantian and Utilitarian Ethics on Capital Punishment. Budapest International Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal): Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(2), 28-35.