Capital Punishment Essay -- essays research papers

Capital punishment is the execution of criminals by the state forcommitting crimes so wicked that it is the plainly acceptable punishment. Thedebate over the death penalty has endured for years and has becomeincreasingly controversial. fit in to an article written by RichardWorsnop, entitled "Death Penalty Debate Centers on Retribution," in 1966,42% of Americans were in advance of capital punishment while 47% were opposedto it in 1986, support for capital punishment was 80% for and only 17%against with 3% indeterminate. Most of the undecided voters said they wouldsupport capital punishment, if they had to vote on it immediately.Currently, public approval of the death penalty is about 70%. While somepeople be opposed to capital punishment, the majority is in favor of it. Therefore, the United States government should strictly enforce capitalpunishment in every state.Admittedly, the act of kill someone is immoral and "Thou shall notkill" is one of Gods commandme nts. However, if it were not for the threatof execution, the murder rate in the United States would be far greater. According to the United States Bureau of Justice bulletin on capitalpunishment (1989), from 1955 to 1965, there were 78,500 murders and 351executions in the United States but from 1966 to 1976, when the deathpenalty was weakened, 288,310 murders were committed and only sixexecutions were carried out. In order for capital punishment to work asd...