Luis Franco (CAPITAL PUNISHMENT)

I chose to do my to reasearch on the topic of CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

What is capital punishment? Capital punishment is the death penalty. It is the execution of a convicted criminal by the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offenses.

Capital punishment is a very contentious issue in some cultures. Supporters of capital punishment argue that it deters crime, prevents recidivism, and is an appropriate form of punishment for the crime of murder. Opponents of capital punishment argue that it does not deter criminals more than life imprisonment, violates human rights, leads to executions of some who are wrongfully convicted, and discriminates against minorities and the poor.

Some countries have been working towards abolishing capital punishment and some have already. Over 90 countries have abolished capital punishment for all offences, 11 for all offences except under special circumstances, and 32 others have not used it for at least 10 years.

To my surprise however, China has performed over more than one-thousand executions in the last year, but sources suggest that it is really over 7,500 to 8,000 executions some who were executed by firing squads, but has now decided that every execution will be done by lethal injection.

The number of executions in the United States in 2006 dropped to its lowest number in over ten years, this is due to legal challenges resulting in many states reviewing their capital punishment policies and procedures.

Support for the death penalty varies widely. The government's stance often has wide public support and receives little attention by politicians or the media. In some abolitionist countries, the majority of the public supports or has supported the death penalty.

Capital punishment is often the subject of controversy. Opponents of the death penalty argue that it has led to irreversible miscarriages of justice, that life imprisonment is an effective substitute, and that it violates the criminal's right to life. Supporters believe that the penalty is justified for murderers by the principle of retribution, that life imprisonment is not an equally effective deterrent, and that the death penalty affirms the right to life by punishing those who violate it in the most strict form. While some arguments are about moral judgments, others are disagreements about empirical trends, such as whether the death penalty is a more effective deterrent than life imprisonment.

A link I followed was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment , here I found a wide variety of information concerning capital punishment.

I also looked at http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/cappun.htm which pointed out many reasons why capital punishment is unethical.

Another link I looked at was http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/human_rights/capital_punishment.html . Here I found some recent stuff on the U.S. government regarding capital punishment.