Death Penalty - Whether It's an Effective Sanction

The death penalty remains a highly debated topic within today’s society; albeit it presents itself as a sanction whose cons outweigh its pros, thus accentuating its unworthiness for reimplementation within Victoria. Though countries that maintain capital punishment for the most severe crimes have morphed into a notable minority, the penalty’s effectiveness as a sanction persists to attract many in its favour. Notwithstanding this, the penalty’s inherent barbarity and lack of morality sees it vastly rejected and discredited. This is death penalty argumentative essay in which will be an attempt to reveal the topic. 

Essentially, the death penalty omits any opportunity of rehabilitation for the criminals, yet it also obliterates any chance of recidivism, even helping to deter other potential criminals by elevating the consequences of their wrongdoings. Furthermore, although common sense seems to indicate that it is more economically reasonable to kill the criminals worthy of the death penalty, since the costs to keep them imprisoned are voided; there are many cases where capital punishment has proven notably more expensive than imprisonment. In addition, capital punishment attempts to punish criminals proportionate to the brutality of their crimes, however, due to its irreversibility, does not compensate appropriately for any miscarriages of justice. Thus, capital punishment may appear, in the hypothetical, to be an effective and appropriate sanction; but demonstrates a distinct lack of favourable qualities when put into practice, with a myriad of evidence, that directly opposes its theorized efficiency and appropriacy, piling against it. 

Even though there are relatively few countries that have maintained their implementation of capital punishment, over 60% of the world’s population resides within countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty. A significant factor motivating the retention of this extreme penalty is its conceived effectiveness to eradicate crime, deterring the criminal from the ability to recommit, and hindering other potential criminals by scaring them with a punishment ostensibly worse than imprisonment: death. However, there are problems that arise from this argument; as Cardinal Avery Dulles points out that although “Executions, especially where they are painful, humiliating, and public, may create a sense of horror that would prevent others from being tempted to commit similar crimes”, “In our day death is usually administered in private by relatively painless means, such as injections of drugs, and to that extent it may be less effective as a deterrent. Sociological evidence on the deterrent effect of the death penalty as currently practiced is ambiguous, conflicting, and far from probative”. Moreover, the death penalty is fundamentally barbaric and cruel, as it offers a merciless retribution that simply abandons the notion of rehabilitation. By preventing the opportunity for recuperation, the death sentence displays itself, solely, as an inhumane act of malice against the criminals. As such, the sanction sends the wrong message, and hence becomes conceptually indifferent to murder. Accordingly, capital punishment presents itself as an inhumane sanction and, though it ends the opportunity for recidivism, it simultaneously bars the opportunity for recuperation. 

Economically, capital punishment seems to be a relatively conservative sanction, when compared to incarceration; as it negates the expenses that originate from imprisonment. However, this appears to be a fallacy, as the death penalty costs much more than what it seems. This is due to many expenses, such as: legal costs, as – since most people who face capital punishment cannot afford their own attorney – the state requires to assign public defenders or court appointed lawyers to represent the accused; pre-trial costs, that encapsulate the expenses arising from the details of the case itself, which may warrant the use of, perhaps, experts for forensic analysis; not to mention the cost of the trials themselves, since they can last over four times longer than non-capital trials. These factors result in a hefty total, which, in many cases, has proven to vastly exceed the expenses of life imprisonment sanctions. In advocation of this, a Susquehanna University analysis discovered that, on average, throughout all 50 states within the USA (since the USA is one of the few countries that has continued its use of capital punishment); a death row inmate costs “$1.12 million” greater than a general population inmate. These statistics highlight capital punishment’s inefficiency to sustain the economy, as compared to the sanction of incarceration. Therefore, the death penalty’s established economic disadvantage adds to its inherent inhumaneness, resultantly amplifying the lack of its necessity within Victoria. Moreover, the death penalty’s main objective is to punish the criminal/s in direct proportion to the severity of their misdeeds. Although it does objectively achieve this; as only the most brutal of crimes activates the need for capital punishment, the sanction’s irreversibility posits the essentiality of eradicating any chance of miscarriages of justice. Nonetheless, since mistakes are unavoidable, the implications are elevated, as there are no appropriate compensations for wrongful execution; due to the fact that lives taken can not be returned. There are many prevailing examples of wrongful executions that outline the death penalty’s inaccuracies, therefore opposing it as a reputable and venerable sanction; such as Harry Gleeson, who was wrongly executed in Ireland in April 1941 for the alleged murder of Moll McCarthy (in a place named County Tipperary during November of the previous year), and found innocent of these crimes much later – being posthumously excused for them in 2015. In addition, within Australia itself, a wrongly accused individual – known as Colin Campbell Ross – was hanged in Melbourne in 1922, for the murder of Alma Tirtschke (who was 12-years-old at the time). This case was revisited in the 1990s, through the implementation of modern techniques, and Ross was also given a posthumous pardon in 2008. Nevertheless, the compensation for these losses, to the wrongfully accused and their family, were comparatively minor, as the punishments themselves could not be reversed. However, had the penalty been incarceration; the compensation, though not completely adequate, would have been much more reasonable for both the wrongfully accused and their family, since the loss of a life would, perhaps, not have occurred. Consequently, the death penalty, though achieving its aim of proportional and just retribution, does not account for any miscalculations of judgement, which can lead to miscarriages of justice, that have profound implications; with any compensation being insignificant in the light of the murder of an innocent human.

 Overall, capital punishment establishes itself – on the surface – as an effective and efficient sanction. It seems to effectively deter criminals, by voiding any opportunity for recidivism; reprimands criminals in proportion to their crimes; and appears to be more cost-effective than imprisonment. Notwithstanding this, the overwhelming evidence against the death penalty asserts it in a vastly different light, proving its inefficiency and economic unreliability relative to incarceration. In addition, the punishment’s fundamental barbarity; lack of opportunity for rehabilitation; and intense severity of potential miscarriages of justice, underlies its incapability of being a worthy sanction to reimplement into Victoria. Hence, since the sanction’s cons unwaveringly outweigh its pros, its reinstation within Victoria would only be inappropriate, due to its overall negative effect.