5 Ways to Keep Society Together, Research Paper Example

Texas is the only state in the U.S. that holds the record of the highest capital punishment count in the world, it can be argued that Texas uses capital punishment in order to achieve several goals such as decrease in crime as well as modifying the behavior of the criminals as well as curbing criminal activity. However, it has been a known fact that even though capital punishment is an effective deterrent from capital offenses such as murder, grand larceny, voluntary manslaughter and even attempted rape; it doesn’t necessarily stop the aforementioned serious crimes. The measures of capital punishment would have one thinking about its effectiveness if crime decreased by a thousand percent, but that is far from the truth. Johnson explained, “deterrence doesn’t guarantee that a person who, spent 10+ years in jail, have actually learned their lesson” (Johnson).

The death penalty or capital punishment, doesn’t deter crime or it doesn’t motivate people to stop committing crimes because they might be the 1% that doesn’t get executed via capital punishment. Furthermore, the death penalty is very ineffective because some criminals simply don’t care about taking a life; the death penalty is worth it to them.

For example, take the deterrence aspect of punishment. The death penalty doesn’t deter hardened criminals from committing murder or even the concept of getting locked up, some of them feel that they are ready to die the way they lived; it is not a deterrent from committing murder as it is a laughable way to administer punishment.

A little more on punishment

Isolation has been an effective way to completely eliminate crime, ironically. Isolation has always been a deterrent of crime because people hate the idea of not being able to see the outside world ever again, if people were just going to jail just to be executed the next couple of days i.e. the death penalty then there’s no reason to think that those people actually care about committing manslaughter to get even or to make a point because the death penalty is their way out.

The death penalty is ineffective in Texas because there are simply too many people who are mocking the death penalty as it is, people still commit crimes for whatever reasons they have; the death penalty is not effective because it is an age old concept that doesn’t work for today’s criminal or society. Morrison reported, “Isolation is clearly a more effective method of stopping or reducing crime because with the dangerous elements off the street, the motivation to commit crime is no longer there and that is far more harmful than the death penalty could ever be” (Morrison).

Isolating a criminal from the rest of the world or from the rest of the criminal element will disrupt the flow of crime that was being committed by the criminal, and there are more people who feel that isolation is a better way of reducing crime instead of using the death penalty. Also, instrumentation of the death penalty has been known to take many an innocent life, a person could have committed the crime so isolating that potential criminal could help the investigation until answers are revealed about whether the person did it or not. Mitchell reported, “isolated criminals have a chance at getting help while they’re in prison, the death penalty isn’t going to stop the next person from picking up where their brother in arms left off” (Mitchell).

Isolation will forever be a deterrent of crime because most people will agree that life in prison without parole is more than a fitting punishment than the death penalty, it goes without saying that the death penalty is being frowned upon.

Finishing up

Rehabilitation is also a more formal and respectable alternative than the death penalty because there are some criminals or people that engage in criminal activity could be rehabilitated in order to better themselves and alleviate the concept of them ever committing crimes again. For example, a person who has a habit of defecating in alleys have been picked up by the police many times for public defecation and has been sent to serve time in jail. While the person is in jail, they are rehabilitated and taught how to find other ways of using the bathroom in public besides doing it in alleyways.

Now, if a person was sent to prison to die by death penalty for the same crime, it can be said that the death penalty took a life unnecessarily because the person wasn’t bad; they were just a little mixed up or homeless which is common in our society. Plus, the death penalty doesn’t stop future potential defecators from defecating in public, if anything, it’ll make people want to do it more because that’ll be their way of protesting the death penalty.

Rehabilitation is effective in the aspect that it gives a person back what they felt they have lost, the “criminal” doesn’t need the threat of the death penalty to straighten up, all they need is to be rehabilitated and shown the bigger reason or reasons why they should not commit the crime or crimes. Rehabilitation has helped many a person get back on the right track and has deterred crime more than 350%, the death penalty creates an uprising where people will continue to boycott it until it fades away into obscurity where it is not used or an option.

Wright reported, “People have shown progress in being deterred from crime because they see that rehabilitation and isolation tools to reforming a criminal or petty offender works wonders” (5).

In conclusion, the death penalty was effective at one time, but isolation, rehabilitation and punishment are far more effective tools at deterring crime.

Work Cited

Johnson, Matthew. “Theories of Punishment: 5 Ways to Keep Society Together.” Udemy Blog. 13 May 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2015. <https://blog.udemy.com/theories-of-punishment/>.

Mitchell, John. “Crimes of Misery and Theories of Punishment.” Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons 15.1 (2012): 5. Print.

Morrison, John. “Death Penalty An Ineffective Deterrent.” The Tech 29 Oct. 1993, 1st ed. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.

Wright, Valerie. “Deterrence in Criminal Justice Evaluating Certainty vs. Severity of Punishment.” The Sentencing Project 1.1 (2010): 5. Print.