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- Legality. The United States is one of 55 countries globally with a legal death penalty, according to Amnesty International. As of Mar. 24, 2021, within the US, 27 states had a legal death penalty (though 3 of those states had a moratorium on the punishment’s use).
- Life without Parole. Life without Parole (also called LWOP) is suggested by some as an alternative punishment for the death penalty. PRO. Proponents of replacing the death penalty with life without parole argue that imprisoning someone for the duration of their life is more humane than the death penalty, that LWOP is a more fitting penalty that allows the criminal to think about what they’ve done, and that LWOP reduces the chances of executing an innocent person.
- Deterrence. One of the main justifications for maintaining a death penalty is that the punishment may prevent people from committing crimes so as to not risk being sentenced to death.
- Retribution. Retribution in this debate is the idea that the death penalty is needed to bring about justice for the victims, the victims’ families, and/or society at large.
- It’S Inhumane
- It Inflicts Psychological Torment
- It Burdens Taxpayers with High Costs
- It Doesn’T Deter Crime
- It Doesn’T Address The Root Causes of Crime
- It’S Biased Against People Experiencing Poverty
- It’S Disproportionately Hurting People with Intellectual Disabilities
- It Has A Racial Bias
- It’S Used as A Tool of Authoritarianism
- It Can’T Be Reversed in Light of New Evidence Or Errors
Content warning: This paragraph includes descriptions of a botched execution Methods of execution have included firing squads, hanging, the electric chair, and lethal injections. Are these punishments inhumane? Death penalty critics look to The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which is an int...
While the death penalty can cause severe physical pain, the time spent on death row can inflict psychological torment, as well. According to The Death Penalty Information Center, death-row prisoners in the United States typically spend over a decadewaiting for their execution dates or for their death sentences to be overturned. During those agonizi...
States use taxpayer money to fund executions. You may think death penalty sentences cost less than life imprisonment, but research shows that’s not true. According to data collected by Amnesty International, Kansas paid 70% more for a death penalty case than a comparable non-death penalty case. The median cost of a non-death penalty case (through t...
Many people can admit the death penalty is not a perfect system, but if it deters crime, isn’t it worth keeping? That statement contains a big “if.” The Death Penalty Information Center has information showing that states without the death penalty have a consistently lower murder rate than states with the death penalty. Since 1990, the gap has incr...
The causes of crime are complex, but there’s little doubt that the death penalty fails to address them. Consider the United States, which experienced a post-2020 increase in violence. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, gun violence was a major contributor. The FBI found that guns were responsible for 77% of murdersnationwide in 2020. In t...
The death penalty is not applied equally based on the crimes people commit. Certain groups are much more likely than others to receive a sentence. According to The International Federation of Human Rights, 95% of prisoners on death row in the United States come from “underprivileged backgrounds.” This doesn’t mean people experiencing poverty have a...
People with intellectual disabilities face increased discrimination in the criminal justice system. They’re more likely to falsely confess to a crime, less equipped to work with lawyers, and more likely to experience harsh and violent treatment in prison. In the United States, jurisdictions using capital punishment are required to make sure that pe...
In the United States, racial discrepancies are the biggest concern for many death penalty critics. According to research, 35% of people executed in the last 40 years have been Black, despite the fact Black Americans only make up 13% of the general population. When researchers take a closer look, they discover patterns of discrimination based on rac...
In theory, the death penalty is only meant to punish the most serious crimes, like murder. However, in places around the world, governments use executions freely and for non-lethal crimes. According to Amnesty International, recorded executions in 2022 hit their highest figure in five years. 883 people (which does not count the thousands possibly e...
What makes the death penalty distinct from life in prison is that the judgment can’t be reversed if new evidence is discovered. It’s a disturbingly frequent occurrence. In 2000, Professor James Liebman from Columbia Law School released a study examining every capital conviction and appeal between 1973-1995. More than 90% of the states that gave dea...
Jun 2, 2021 · More Americans favor than oppose the death penalty: 60% of U.S. adults favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, including 27% who strongly favor it. About four-in-ten (39%) oppose the death penalty, with 15% strongly opposed, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
- Reem Nadeem
Jan 20, 2021 · Justice Breyer wrote in that 46-page dissent that he considered it “highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment,” which bars cruel and unusual punishments. He said that ...
The death penalty is a blatant violation of human rights. Executing someone is the ultimate act of violence, and it denies that person their most fundamental right: the right to live. It is the ultimate cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment. Some people argue that people who commit the crime of murder deserve to be executed as their punishment.
Jan 31, 2024 · Español. The infliction of the death penalty is incompatible with the right to life and is difficult to reconcile with the right to live free of torture. The UN has historically opposed it and works towards its worldwide abolition. And progress has been made: the death penalty has been abolished in approximately 170 countries so far.
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Feb 14, 2023 · Feb 14, 2023. By Elaine McArdle. More than 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty was an unconstitutional violation of the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. With that, 629 people on death row nationwide had their capital sentences commuted, and the death penalty disappeared ...
