The Wieght Of Puishment Essays - Penology, Criminology,

The Wieght Of Puishment THE WEIGHT OF PUNISHMENT Capital punishment, known as the death penalty is not practiced in all states. In order to receive or qualify for the death penalty you would have to commit murder, which is taking an innocent person life away from our society. To commit an unpleasant act like that a person has to be ill and immoral. When I see people holding up signs, marching or giving speeches on how we have to abandoned the death penalty I get sick to my stomach. Any person that was willing to take a innocent persons life away should be willing to live up to the punishment. If we do without the death penalty that will not give any seriousness to the act of murder. I fully agree with capital punishment. For the utilitarian, punishment is only regarded to as if there is happiness created and unhappiness not created. From the utilitarian point of view capital punishment is good if it prevents or deters the criminal from repeating the crime and also deters others in acting out a crime in the future. One problem utilitarian thoughts have are, first of all utilitarian try to reduce the amount of unhappiness as much as they can, in doing that they are also reducing the amount of punishment given for the act of murder. So by this fact it is wrong to reduce the amount of punishment just to create happiness. A murder deserves every ounce of punishment that comes along with the price of killing. The retributive thoughts of capital punishment, first of all is that all criminals earn punishment and also adding to this is that the punishment should be equal in treatment to the crime. Retributive also complies with an eye for an eye, just like the amount of punishment is based on the degree of the crime. The problem with retributive thinking is that if you kill two people the punishment you deserve far more then just the killing of you, but the killing of one of your family members. The retributive opinion is more on a personal minded justification, for example if you speak to a victim who just had his wife and daughter killed by another person he will want the same done to him because of the pshycolgical effect that was put on the victim. My opinion on the death penalty is that if you commit a killing you deserve the punishment that comes along with it. I wonder why the states wait an average of twenty years to put a murder in the chair; there should not be a gap between the crime and the punishment. Every day after the killer gets to live after the crime he or she is being treated unfairly toward the victim's rights. I am not talking about a criminal act consisting of stolen goods or assault of another person I'm talking about taking innocent persons life for no reason. I think that is a very sick and unlawful act to commit; the penalty should be issued as fast as possible, to show the importance of innocent life. Capital punishment should always be practiced; it is or can be thought of as a controller of society. In other words it is like a ruler, those who follow will not receive punishment, and those who do not follow it will receive the punishment. The public deserves the safety of the capital punishment. Capital punishment frightens people thinking about committing a crime. This is a proven fact; you can look up the histories of states with the death penalty and see that the killing rate has gone down since the law was passed. Most people fear death and capital punishment is fear itself, many people will avoid coming to conflict with the law. Putting someone on life without parole is like giving him a gift. Some people will murder or commit a crime just to be sent to jail, they feel like it will be a better life for them. They get three meals a day and have a shelter to stay in, but we do not want to give a criminal what he wants, we want to give him the maximum punishment for his