Pros And Cons Of The Death Penalty

The death penalty not only affects the criminals that have been condemned to death, but also to the victims and their families. A 2007 study suggested that for every homicide victim, six to ten family members are indirectly victimized. In accordance, the FBI reported nearly 15,700 homicides nationwide in 2015. One University of Minnesota study found that solely 2.5% of families and friends of murder victims, also known as ‘co-victims’, while 20.1% said the execution did not help them heal. Additionally, a 2012 Marquette University Law School study reported that co-victims actually improved in physical and psychological health with greater satisfaction in cases where the perpetrators received life sentences, rather than judicial murder. Lula …show more content…
A majority of voters would choose a punishment other than death, and proponents for the death penalty supposed it’s a necessary tool. According to a poll commissioned by the Death Penalty Information Center, the death penalty is losing the confidence of the American public because of mistakes and lack of efficacy. As reported by the National Bureau of Economic Research, capital cases strain county budgets with vast unexpected costs. Thus, counties manage these extensive costs by decreasing funding for highways, police, and by increasing taxes. Not to mention, the death penalty consists of legal, pre-trial, jury selection, trial, incarceration, and appeal expenses that all weigh heavy on taxpayers. Therefore, they divert resources from genuine crime control measures by minimizing resources for crime prevention, mental health treatment, education and rehabilitation, victims’ services, drug treatment programs, prosecutions of drug crimes, domestic violence, and child abuse. What’s more, capital punishment perpetuates social injustice by targeting people of color and people who can’t afford adept …show more content…
Simply put, a defendant was several times more likely to be sentenced to death if the victim was white. This has been verified by the findings of many studies that, while holding all other factors constant, the single most reliable predictor of whether someone would receive the death penalty is the race of the victim. In addition, while the Constitution entitles capital defendants to a fair jury, too often fair jurors are excluded because of race. For instance, unfair prosecutors deliberately exclude jurors based on their race because of a false belief that people of color cannot serve as jurors and follow the law. Although the Constitution forbids such intentional discrimination, procedural impediments too often hinder claims of bias from being heard. In 1967, executions in the U.S. were temporarily suspended to give the federal courts time to settle on whether or not the death penalty was unconstitutional. Subsequently, in 1972, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty violated the Eighth

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