Kayla Kingdon

Criminal justice 1010

Professor Julia Ellis

June 17, 2017

The Death Penalty.

The death penalty is a very controversial subject. Many people think that it should not be aloud.

Growing up I always assumed the death penalty was a bad thing. I grew up with republican

parents who believed in the death penalty. All I saw was murderers getting murdered which

didn't make sense to me as a young child. As I grow old I realize my assumptions were not

correct. After doing a lot of research on this topic I now truly believe that the death penalty is a

needed part of society and its needs. My education and sense tell me that there is no right

answer to whether the death penalty is morally correct. Everyone has different opinions (which is

what makes us as a culture so unique.) This is not about opinions and thoughts, it's about what

the facts are saying.

1,436 people were executed in the United States from 1977 through May 2016, primarily by

means of lethal injection (1) This is information we know to be true. In the last 39 years we

have only executed 1,436 people. That was surprising to me I assumed that number would be a

lot higher.

Finding correct sources on such controversial issues is usually hard. A lot of websites are biases

and not always correct. Usually reliable sources are not bias and use correct English on their web

pages.

A lot of good sources on the death penalty come from Criminal Justice books.(3)
While doing my research I came across a New York Times article that stated According to the

report, there have been 69 cases since 1973 in which people have been released from death row

because they were improperly convicted or evidence of their innocence was uncovered after they

were sentenced to die (2) This is a statement that can not be verified. We don't know that this is

true. After looking I found many different numbers of falsely accused inmates. Data like this is

an example of false information that can be discarded.

One of the best ways to find good reliable information is to always verify and make sure you

have more than one source that states the same thing.

I feel I asked many questions and hopefully I asked the ones that really matter. I feel I gained a

substantial amount of knowledge about the death penalty, at least enough to form a conclusion

based on the facts.

Although there are many possible conclusions you can form from the facts and data in front of

you. My conclusion is that the death penalty does not lower the rate of crime, it's just used to

discard of dangerous people. The number of death sentences handed down by juries has been

declining for years, and in 2012 and 2015, no one received the death penalty in North Carolina.

Even prosecutors have declined to seek the death penalty in all but a handful of cases. Yet,

according to the N.C. Department of Justice, the state murder rate has declined in the years since

executions stopped. Given this fact, there is no credible argument that the death penalty deters

crime. (4)
My conclusion is an accurate statement of all the data i've read through and collected. I believe

that this conclusion makes sense. As a society we decided to get rid of bad people; but is there

really a fool proof way to tell who the bad guys are?

My conclusion is supported by the evidence I have been reading about. I think the evidence is

clear and i see no further need to investigate and gather more knowledge on the subject. As I

previously stated, our personal opinions on the matter don't matter; it's about the facts.

Sources:

(1)http://deathpenalty.procon.org/

(2)http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/14/opinion/wrongful-death-penalty.html

(3)The Death Penalty: Capital Punishment in the US (Criminal Justice) by David F Garfield

(4)https://nccadp.org/death-penalty-issue/failure-to-deter-crime/