Capital Punishment Assignment, Research Paper Example

Capital punishment in the Capitalist society is generally assumed to be the correct method of dealing with crimes of this import however, an important question for those who do not support capital punishment is that of why it is that supporters of capital punishment believe that the practice of legalized killing of criminals will somehow serve to appropriately emphasize the importance of refraining from the commission of murder or other capital offenses in the society? Indeed, it is as though supporters of capital punishment believe that two wrongs will magically result in that which is ‘right’. Karl Marx in his writings on the subject of crime and punishment and specifically that which he wrote in the New York Daily Tribune on Capital punishment that the way he understood the practice of applying punishment for legal misdeeds is as follows:

“Plainly speaking, and dispensing with all paraphrases, punishment is nothing but a means of society to defend itself against the infraction of its vital conditions, whatever may be their character. Now, what a state of society is that which knows of no better instrument for its own defense, than the hangman, and which proclaims through the ‘leading journal of the world’ [The Times] its own brutality as eternal law?”[i] (Tunick, 1992, p. 47)

The work of Tunick (1992) states that Marx, is making both a “claim and a judgment” in his statement and that being that “…punishment is brutal” and that punishment is “an instrument used by society to defend itself so that it may maintain itself.” (Tunick, 1992, p. 47)  In other words preservation of society is the primary goal of application of punishment to those who commit crimes specifically capital offenses. The Marxist view of capitalist society is that this society is neatly divided between two classes and the first being those who own property (the haves) and those who do not own property (the have nots). From the view of the radical criminologists, “criminal law and law enforcement” are held to be, while useful, to simultaneously be such for only those with powerful interests and those who are in the classes of society, which dominates that society.  (Tunick, 1992, p. 48, paraphrased)

The work of Norrie (1977)[ii] states that in capitalist society “the demand for criminal justice is always and unavoidably associated with a deficiency in social justice.” In fact, Norrie holds that the contention between criminal and social justice in addition to the requirement of retributive criminal justice so that the two can be combined with validity, results in the theory  being “forever doomed in its practical application to self-contradiction.” (Norrie, 1972) Capital punishment has historically resulted in innocent men and women being put to death by execution through legally sanctioned means. However, the problem with capital punishment is that once this level of punishment is applied when there is somehow a misapplication of justice, there is no method available whatsoever to ‘correct’ the wrongful application of justice due to the finality of the punishment applied in capital offenses. In other words, once the individual has been punished ‘to death’ there is no point of departure from that sentence because capital punishment is final and irreversible. While at first glance it would appear that capital punishment is both a  just and ethical means of serving out punishment to criminals in actuality,  two wrongs never make a right. When innocent individuals are wrongfully put to death as a form of punishment, there is no way to change the sentence and restore the innocent because they have been deprived of their very life in the name of justice and equity.

Bibliography

Karl Marx, “Capital Punishment,” in New York Daily Tribune, February 18, 1853, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), vol. 12, pp. 25–26 in: Tunick, Mark. Punishment: Theory and Practice. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4q2nb3dn/

The work of Karl Marx was published in the New York Daily Tribune in 1853.

Tunick, Mark. Punishment: Theory and Practice. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4q2nb3dn/

Tunick (1992) examines the theory and practice of punishment from the view of Marxism.

Norrie, A.W. (1977) Marxism and the Critique of Criminal Justice. Crime, Law and Social Change. Vol. 6, No. 1. Retrieved from: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k4u55586521v2287/

Norrie (1977) writes his critique of criminal justice and specifically as it relates to the application of capital punishment from the standpoint of the Marxist school of thought while holds that capital punishment is too brutal and that the burden of punishment is much weightier than the criminal offenses committed for which the death penalty is handed down by the justice system.

[i] Karl Marx, “Capital Punishment,” in New York Daily Tribune , February 18, 1853, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) (Berlin: Dietz, 1984), vol. 12, pp. 25–26 in: Tunick, Mark. Punishment: Theory and Practice. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4q2nb3dn/

[ii] Norrie, A.W. (1977) Marxism and the Critique of Criminal Justice. Crime, Law and Social Change. Vol. 6, No. 1. Retrieved from: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k4u55586521v2287/