Death Penalty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Death Penalty - Essay Example The theorization of capital punishment has shown a great favor to its status as a deterrent to crime. Scholars like Emile Durkheim and Foucault have put emphasis on punishment as well as capital punishment as deterrent to crime. Some recent empirical studies also show evidences of the deterrent effects of the capital punishment on the crime rate in a country. But opponents of capital punishment argue that though death-penalty has deterrent effects they are negligible, as it is claimed in a report, â€Å"The death penalty in the U.S. is an enormously expensive and wasteful program with no clear benefits† (Death Penalty Information Center). Meanwhile, opponents of the capital punishment often refer to the high crime rate in the United State as evidences of ineffectiveness of this death-penalty as a deterrent. Indeed this high rate of capital-punishment deserving crimes does not necessarily require that it should be abolished. If it is supposed that it should be abolished because of the high rate, other forms of punishments also should be abolished. Indeed such arguments are some sorts of blubbery. ... Taking an ethical decision becomes more difficult when it is revealed that a number of the death deserving crimes are committed driven by anger, or by other emotional convulsions. The opponents often claim that death penalty is not the least effective, since most of the murderers think that they will be able evade this punishment, as the Police Chief of Los Angels, Willie L. Williams says, â€Å"I am not convinced that capital punishment, in and of itself, is a deterrent to crime because most people do not think about the death penalty before they commit a violent or capital crime† (â€Å"Fact Sheet†). Indeed such claim does not necessarily prove that death penalty is not a deterrent, rather it indicates to the glaring faults of law enforcing agencies that convince a would-be murderer to belief that they are evadable. Indeed the high rate of crimes and murders in the United States has its root not in the ineffectiveness of the capital punishment, rather in its faults of enforcement. A comparative statistics on the executions and the incidences of murders shows that â€Å"only about 110 death-sentences are handed out for the more than 17000 reported murders that occur every year† (Class Text). In fact, such statistic shows that the vast majority of the unpunished murderers will be examples for those who want to commit murder. Even though death penalty has a deterrent effect on the majority of the common people, it is only the face-value of the scheme and policy of keeping people away from committing murder. While materializing death-penalty effectively, any policy against crimes like homicides and murders should include other socio-cultural, religious and even economic deterrents. According to Foucault, social disciplinary institutions can play a significant role lessening