Paper Topic:

Capital Punishment

Should Capital Punishment be Abolished

Capital punishment should be abolished . An emotional debate rages in the United States about its deterrent effects , its costs , its morality , its fairness , and its judicial value . Statistics , interpolated mathematics and statements from wise people bolster the arguments on both sides Distilling the evidence from the bravado gives one inescapable conclusion the death penalty harms more than it benefits society

If capital punishment deters premeditated murder then logically there should be few murders per capita in States that employ the death penalty . The statistics shown in

Table 1 (FBI , 2008 ) indicate the opposite

Table 1 Comparison of Murder Rates 2000-2006

Year HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2000 .htm " 2000 HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2001 .htm " 2001 HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2002 .htm " 2002 HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2003 .htm " 2003 HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2004 .htm " 2004 HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2005 .htm " 2005 HYPERLINK "http /davecoop .net /2006 .htm " 2006

Murder Rate in Death Penalty States 5 .7 5 .82 5 .82 5 .91 5 .71 5 .87 5 .9

Murder Rate in 4 .25 4 .25 4 .27 4 .1 4 .02 4 .03 4 .22

Non-death

Penalty States

Percent 35 37 36 44 42 46 40

Difference Proponents of the death penalty refute these statistics stating Emory University , finds that "each execution results , on average , in 18 fewer murders--with a margin of error of plus or minus 10 (Sharp 2002 . The report uses an econometric model to predict that murderers making rational...

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