*AKA* –>
“THE DEATH PENALTY”
“JUSTIFIED HOMICIDE”
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*CITIES FOR LIFE DAY*
(NOVEMBER 30TH)
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(“capital punishment” is a government-sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime)
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The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, whereas the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences.
(the term capital is derived from the Latin capitalis (“of the head”, referring to execution by beheading))
Fifty-eight countries retain capital punishment, 102 countries have completely abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 32 are abolitionist in practice.
Capital punishment is a matter of active controversy in various countries and states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural region.
In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment.
Also, the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members.
The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014 non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.
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(although most nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world’s population live in countries where executions take place, such as…)
‘china’
‘india’
‘the united states’
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(“a present for luna”)
(during my third and final year as a crimsonite, some big-tittied dumb italiana named luna became a favorite online chat buddy of mine)
we’d gone to high school together and she’d been the object of a sizeable portion of my sexual fantasies.
she’d gone onto west CHESTER college in pennsylvania along with fellow dumb italiana nat d’amato.
one night, she hit me up looking for guidance on a paper she was assigned to write on the relative merits of capital punishment. as most hot chicks tended to do back then, she adopted what she perceived as the traditionally “conservative” position that the death penalty probably benefitted society as a whole (she was also in support of GW’s run for a second term at the time while I secretly supported jonathan kerry just because I found republicans more relatively obnoxious than democrats). influenced by the libertarian economics of jeffrey miron (who probably also secretly supported kerry for the very same reasons / i distinctly remember him noting with some pride on election afternoon that kerry was way ahead in most exit polls), I decided that i was not in favour of the death penalty (as he argued that the court costs of death-row appeals were more societally costly than incarcerating convicts for life).
‘Mary Go Bye-Bye’
Every society must determine whether or not the death penalty will reduce crime. The masculine inclination is to support the death penalty in order to deter would-be ‘criminals’ from violating the laws established by the prevailing government.
The legalization of the death penalty leads to fascism…
Is the presence of the death penalty an economically sound policy?
(in terms of its cost-benefit implications for crime rates)
What value does a would-be criminal place on his own life?
(is the prospect of death the ultimate deterrent’?)
The United States is one of the few developed countries that continues to employ the death penalty.
We share this distinction with the following nations:
China
Iran
Saudi Arabia
(these nations account for vast majority of executions in developed countries)
As American society became less barbaric, the execution rate declined at a substantial rate.
As we approached the ‘flower power’ age, we eradicated executions from society
(ZERO executions in the United States from 1967 – 1972)
(remember the lynch victims!)
*Supreme Court declares death penalty unconstitutional in 1972*
*Supreme Court reinstates death penalty in 1976*
*75% of US states have applied the death penalty to criminals since 1976*
*Several hundred executions every year in the United States*
What happened?
Gary Becker (American economist / born 1930) –>
“Every citizen is capable of committing a crime. Some face higher expected rewards from crime than from legal market activity (and vice versa). In earning a living, some choose to commit a crime and some choose to obey the law.”
The theory was considered radical when first proposed by Becker. The prevailing view at the time held by sociologists/criminologists had been that criminals were ‘different’ (deviant personalities / ‘criminogenic’ genes / lousy upbringings). Becker declared that criminals are rational beings responding to incentives + some face greater incentives for committing crimes than others. This theory revolutionized economists’ approach to crime analysis (although determining exactly how comprehensive the theory is becomes difficult to determine). The key testable implication of the economic approach is that the decision to commit crimes should depend on expected costs of getting caught and being sanctioned. If these costs are increased (penalties more severe), then crime rates should decrease (‘deterrent effect’).
‘Calculations of a Potential Criminal’ –>
– Probability of being arrested given one has committed a crime
– Probability of being convicted given one has been arrested
– Expected length of incarceration given one has been convicted/sentenced
If death is ultimate punishment, then possibility of death penalty should deter potential criminals.
Crimes for which a severe penalty is ‘appropriate’:
death penalty vs. life imprisonment
Cost of incarcerating a prisoner –> 25K / year
(assuming a typical murderer age 25 / lives to age 65):
Cost to the state of incarceration –> $376,000 discounted at 6%
Death Penalty –> (friend to the taxpayer?)
Moral Arguments in favor of death penalty:
Murders and perpetrators of other evils ‘deserve to die’.
‘Eye For An Eye’ –> Exodus 21:23-27
Society’s moral outrage is assuaged by death penalty
(they’d lynch the poor bastard otherwise)
(*impossible to analyze this moral arguments in an economic framework*)
Counter-arguments:
Reference studies attempting to determine degree to which death penalty reduces homicide. Some studies claim to find substantial effect / some studies claim to find zero effect. The most in-depth studies tend to find zero effect (this does not prove that there is no effect / merely fails to suggest a non-trivial effect).
But it is reasonable to assume that the death penalty has no deterrent effect. Some murders are ‘crimes of passion’ so it is unlikely that rational thought plays a role in the murderer’s decision-making process.
Other murders are ‘rational’:
– Dispute resolutions in illegal drug trade
Again, death penalty offers little deterrent effect. Probabilities of arrest, conviction, execution are all small for these types of cases (product of fractions would be even smaller). Rational murders downplay difference in costs between execution and life imprisonment (remember that imposition of death penalty often occurs with substantial delay). Though incarcerating a prisoner for life presents a substantial cost to the taxpayer, there are other costs associated with the death penalty. Difficult to gauge the exact figures, but there are often costly appeals from lawyers of prisoners sentenced to death. Even if a few prosecutors/judges per state spend non-trivial amounts of time opposing/adjudicating these appeals, than these costs will offset the savings in incarceration costs. Therefore, it is unlikely that imposing the death penalty has any large cost savings effect.
Most citizens are familiar with cases in which evidence produced years/decades after a crime has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that someone other than the convicted person actually committed the crime. Therefore the wrongly convicted person (and society) derives a benefit from being able to partially correct such mistakes. Even though most convicted murders are truly guilty, the small fraction of wrongly convicted citizens sentenced to death is an additional argument to eradicate the death penalty.
(one cannot release a man from death upon the discovery of evidence which exonerates him)
Moral arguments against death penalty:
State should not take a life in any circumstance beyond self-defense
(again / impossible to justify this moral argument with economic analysis)
Death penalty is not a crucial issue facing the nation
(since it is unlikely to have strong deterrent effect on crime)
Crime rates can be reduced more effectively with radical legislation:
Drug legalization
Prostitution legalization
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“reduction of poverty”
(educational initiatives)
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💕💝💖💓🖤💙🖤💙🖤💙🖤❤️💚💛🧡❣️💞💔💘❣️🧡💛💚❤️🖤💜🖤💙🖤💙🖤💗💖💝💘
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*🌈✨ *TABLE OF CONTENTS* ✨🌷*
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🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥*we won the war* 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥