Position on Ethical Issue

Capital punishment is the method accepted and utilized by modern, civil society for the control and protection of its citizens. Capital punishment has been utilized since the dawn of civil society as a means to keep the peace and prevent citizens from committing crimes against one another and the state. In recent years, however, the modern liberal movement has sought to question the justifications behind capital punishment, especially that of the death penalty and its effectiveness in preventing crimes. Much argument and literature has been written about the topic and yet the conclusion remains the same, capital punishment is the most potent and practal means of keeping society civil and safe through the effects of deterence, retribution, and incapacitiation when necessary.

Deterence is societies initial response and argument for the use of capital punishment. Deterrence is the pricinciple that administered consequences for socially unacceptable action have the impact of preventing the desire to commit those actions within society (Ehrlich, 1972). Simply put, when certain behaviors have serious consequences, societies are less likely to commit those behaviors. Quintecential examples of this come from countries where capital punishment is especially harsh. For example, in Saudi Arabia anyone caught steeling has their hand cut off (Vogel, 1999). For crimes such as murder, rape or any other form of violence, those committing the acts are sentenced to death and their bodies displayed. While these consquences may seem harsh compared with the American system of justice, it only takes the comparison of crime rates to realize the full success of the practice. In Saudi Arabia the most common crime is theft, which accounts fro 47% of the crimes committed in the country (DeRouen, 2007). According to the international figures, the murder rate in Saudi Arabia averages 1.1 per 100,000 people. In the United States, the murder rate is 9.8 per 100,000 people (FBI, 2006). This when considering the numbers, the strict capital punishments utilized by Saudi Arabia clearly pervent the soaring crime rates that other nations experience.

Many would argue, however, that the figures alone might be deceptive. Some ideallists would propose, for instance, that if a country's capital punishment laws were truly working, then that country's crime should be all the way down to nothing and the laws would no longer be necessary. However, such an argument defeats the purpose of capital punishment deterrence, which is to make an example of crime when it does occur to deter others from committing the same crime.

The second argument in favor of capital punishment is that of retribution. Retribution is the response of victims to enact justice for the crime. Those in favor of capital punishment argue that by utilizing harsh punishments for the criminals, it prevents the citizens from taking justice into their own hands. For this argument people often site the robbery victim whose robber was let off only to be killed by his victim the next time the two encounter each other. This rogue pricinciple pushes society to continually monitor, try, and punish criminals.

The argument typically stated against retribution is that the most extreme forms of capital punishment, the death penalty, are rarely given within the United States, therefor it must not be truly preventing revenge from victims. This argument, however, once again neglects that the United States's system of capital punishment when compared to the rest of the world is highly flawed. Additionally, even a punishment of life imprisonment, or a consquence of any kind is typically enough to foster a sense of justice in the victims.

The third arguemnt for capital punishment is that of incapacitation. Incapacitation is the legal means of physically making recommitment of a crime impossible through either locking up or ending the life of the criminal. The reasoning behind this argument is that there are a number of criminals who are prone to recommitment of the same crimes if left in the public. In Italy, for instance, statistics have shown that 30% of those criminals released from prison, commit the same crimes again (Barbarino, 2007). It this very priciple that has led many states to enact a three-strikes rule against repeat criminals. Under this rule, if a person commits three felonies within a state, the punishment after conviction of that last crime is life in prison. This three-strikes rule has successfully led to the removal of many criminals from society.

The standard argument against incapacitation is that of reform. According to reform theorists, people commit crimes because they were not taught how to avoid criminal activity as children. Therefor, they can be retaught how they must act in society and will therefor not commit any further crimes. While this arguemnt is idealistic, the results have not proven as effective as the theory. According to studies by the National Justice Assocation, repeat offenses by reformed criminals have been recorded as high as 88.3%. This is especially true with regard to sexual criminals.