Capital Punishment in America. Dismantling the machinery of death.

Mary Carmen Lezama 141199

April 24th, 2014

Soc. EEUU

This article posted in The Economist basically talks about how the changing America is headed to abolish the death penalty, it has just failed in the state of New Hampshire by only one vote and there hasn’t been any executions there since 1939, but besides this setback the abolitionists are slowly winning. Six states have abolished it since 2007 bringing the total to 18 out of 50 and the number of executions has fallen to one third since 1999.

            The majority of voters in favour of the death penalty is shrinking from 80% in 1994 to 60% in 2013, also the young Americans are less likely to support it and non-whites solidly oppose. There are powerful arguments that support the abolition of capital punishment proving that murder rate in the states that don’t carry out executions is lower than the states that do and that death penalty does not compel rational justification for such secular democracy. Also nowadays executing a murderer is three times more expensive than locking him up for life and the money spent on the machinery of death would probably do more spent on better policing.

            Some of the oppositors argue that death is the only fitting punishment for murderers and that it satisfies society’s need for retribution. Also they think that the amount of criminals is increasing no matter the punishment and some day the budget intended to mantain the jails won’t be enough or will be also more suitable for purpuses of prevention and security.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21601258-how-america-canand-willabolish-death-penalty-dismantling-machinery-death

I believe that indeed the american society is moving towards a more humanist way of thinking and it is in some way tired of all the violence that the society’s been draged into by government’s decissions, and this has made room for a more peaceful reasoning among the youth and this will eventually abolish the death penalty, perhaps it also puts back politicians who oppose it, so I agree with the article but I don’t think that this will help to fight the criminal rate or help with justice problems.  

I know that the juries are falliable and there may be some innocents killed by mistake but dismantling the capital punishment is not the solution for this, it sholuld be improving the whole system. Also since 1976 there are no proven cases where America has executed an innocent, and capital cases are subject to multiple appeals but in my opinion most murderers are not stopped nor fixed by jail. Also with the new laws respecting the carrying of weapons in some states being approved who knows what will happend respecting violence and the reinforcement of the justice system with the deterrence of the capital punishment, personally I think that it will be missed once it’s gone.