Capital_Punishment

Capital Punishment DOES CAPITAL PUNISHMENT DETER VIOLENT CRIME' IDEALS IN CONFLICT Capital Punishment is the state ordered execution of an offender convicted of a crime and punishable by death (Bender 1). It is a topic that provokes deep emotional reactions for those on both sides of the issue. Over the past 200 years, Americans have been arguing passionately about the death penalty without reaching a moral, legal, or practical consensus. Most ancient societies accepted the death penalty as a reasonable punishment for certain crimes. European settlers brought the death penalty to the American colonies, where idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, murder, adultery, rape, perjury, and rebellion were all capital crimes in 1636. The continuing use of the death penalty reflected societies belief that severe crimes warranted severe punishments and that such punishments would deter others from committing such crimes. (Bender & Leone 16) As we enter the dawn of the 21st century, the death penalty is considered by most civilized nations as cruel and inhuman punishment. In fact, the United States is one of the few democratic nations still using capital punishment. While the religious community is adamantly against capital punishment, the majority of capital, punishment, death, penalty, been, public, murder, life, crime, support, people, innocent, cases, years, evidence, about, one, legal, crimes, both, victim, review, opponents, deterrent, american, without, whether, violent, system, should, sentence, recent, provides, over, out