United States Has Adopted Death Penalty, Research Paper Example

Abstract

United States has adopted death penalty as a punishment to offenders for some of the crimes. Citizens in the country have varying thoughts and opinions concerning the matter. However citizens in the United States inclined to the Republican Party strongly agree to death penalty in some of the trial cases. Members of the Republican party have for years continued to campaign for legalization of capital punishment in the judicial system. Attribution theory forms the main link to Republicans inclining towards legality of capital punishment. Gender also plays a great role in influencing a person’s support towards legality of capital punishment. Statistical means of computing will apply to analyze the relationship between capital punishment, gender and political affiliation. The findings of the computations support the research’s argument that Republicans support the motion about executions from trial proceedings more than people from other affiliations.

Introduction

This paper will analyze how political inclination and gender affect a person favoring or opposing capital punishment. Capital punishment is currently allowed in many of the states found in the U.S. As of June 11, 2020, capital punishment in twenty-eight states was constitutional. With the information it is important to research on whether various people agree or disagree with the punishment. Passing of the laws that allow for death penalty came from various representatives from different political affiliations selected to represent citizens in multiple houses. United States faces major problems in selection of leaders and society representatives as their opinion concerning offender execution matters the most. Selected representatives also come up with regulations concerning the issue thus are major controllers. Some political leaders who do not support capital punishment even lose elections as people view them to support crime.

Gender is also a contributor to campaigns on offender execution. More women think that capital punishment is unconstitutional compared to men. This paper also outlines results from statistical computations that support the idea and reveals that both genders from the Republican Party support the death penalty. The number is high for both genders in the party compared to other political affiliations. According to Michel and Cochran (2011), men support capital punishment more than their male counterparts. Black people, too, offer little support to the form of punishment as they feel that it is racially discriminative.

According to Arango (2019), Governor Gavin Newsom from California signed an executive order that ended the death penalty on offenders.  The ruling caused presidential candidates from the Democratic Party to call for the end of using capital punishment in the judicial system. The candidates stated that the death penalty was morally wrong and received influence from a bias on race. The remarks brought relief to the party as most members supported the punishment as a protection strategy from citizens viewing them to be lenient on crime. Presidents in the United States hail from a political affiliation; therefore, they always play the most significant role in overseeing capital punishment according to beliefs from their respective parties. This research paper has the main objective of focusing on the impact political parties and gender have on a person’s belief about capital punishment.

Literature Review

To get an insight and overlook of the various causing factors to support or critique offender execution I looked for scholarly sources with the information. This review will have a focus on the contributing factors to the various opinions. Cochra et al. (2006) form a close relationship between beliefs in politics and offender execution in the United States. In this case, political ideology refers to a person being a liberal or a conservative, whereas affiliation lies between support to Democratic or Republican Parties. Republicans in the United States have a higher possibility of supporting the punishment on offenders than people inclined to other parties. Cochra et al. (2016) use attribution theory in the study, which prompts people to account for their own and other people’s behavior. The article also highlights that a person’s political socialization dramatically influences the person’s formation of identity.

Attribution theory aims at checking the consequences of a person’s acknowledgments and actions. In this case, the approach helps to analyze a continuous link between a person’s political ideology and capital punishment support. The study uses the theory to check people’s attributions towards crime and the effect they have on the person’s support for capital punishment. The article supports the main argument of this research paper concerning support to offender execution as a sentencing procedure. The researchers offered questionnaires to the respondents prompting them to rate their opinion about capital punishment. The participants had to respond with their opinions about capital punishment on adult and youth offenders. The questionnaires also required participants to state their political affiliations. The collected results indicated that most of the republicans agreed with the idea of capital punishment on offenders.

Arango (2019).is one of the few reaserchers who contradict with the idea about political parties having an effect on opinions about death penalty. The article has the main focus on the Democrats in the United States. A person stand against capital punishment in the judicial system can lead them to fail in their elections as people view them to have support for crime. For a person to approved as president in the United States their stance about capital punishment has to be supportive. The Democratic Party stated its stance concerning capital punishment. Hillary Clinton, one of Democratic Party’s presidential candidates, was of the opinion.  Obama, too, was a democrat but still supported the sentence.

Michel and Cochran (2011) highlight the effects of gender on support towards capital punishment. The study emphasizes the case of Furman v. Georgia (1972), which promoted the idea that capital punishment was against the eighth and fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.  Justice Marshall claimed that the immense support for capital punishment resulted from lacking enough knowledge about the issue. Many of the citizens in the country showed support for the use of capital punishment as they did not have enough knowledge about the severity of the matter. Therefore if individuals supporting the penalty against offenders receive more information concerning the issue, the support has a higher possibility of declining (Sethuraju et al. 2016). Gender causes a great disparity in individual opinions concerning offender execution. The study also supports the idea that black people area against capital punishment at a higher rate than the whites and other people of color. Blacks believe that the punishment discriminates people according to race. Michel and Cohren (2011) highlight a brain scanner study checking on empathic responses, which revealed that only women displayed empathy from electric shock on their bodies.

Hypothesis

The main question aimed to answer through this research paper is “How does a person’s political affiliation affect their support towards the death penalty? ”  I come up with the hypothesis that Republicans in the United States favor capital punishment in trial proceedings more than other people. The independent variable to my hypothesis is a person’s political affiliation measured as either Democratic, independent, or Republican. The dependent variable is a person’s support or critique of the death penalty. To effectively test the proposed hypothesis’s effectiveness, the research uses statistical methods of computation mainly carried out in R Studio. Gender in this research can act as the control variable.

The justification for the selected hypothesis has a basis on the fact that lawmakers are the ones who come up with the constitutional amendments that allow capital punishment. Therefore, it is necessary to assess whether the lawmakers’ respective political affiliations affect their support towards the sentence. From the results from various statistical computations political beliefs influences a person’s support. Therefore on carrying out the various statistical computations, the data collected should effectively sow Republicans to be having more substantial support on the death penalty. Gender also has an effect on opinion about death penalty as men have a bigger inclination to legality of the punishment.

Methodology

To test whether the proposed hypothesis is working to identify Republicans to favor death penalty more than people supporting other affiliations I will use GSS data which presents various people according to their political affiliations. The primary independent variable used in the test is a political affiliation, which can either be Democratic, Independent, or Republic. To identify effectiveness of the proposed hypothesis results from the various statistical computations has to showcase Republicans to having a stronger support for the punishment with few respondents from other affiliations revealing similar support. The results should also display the effect gender has on a person’s personal opinion concerning execution.

Results

From the statistical analysis, respondents inclined to the independent political affiliation have a higher frequency than those from other parties. The data had a total of one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five respondents. When carrying out an analysis on the respondents who favored and those opposing sixty-point four nine two percent of the total respondents were in favor, thirty two-point four-six percent opposed. In contrast, the remaining seven point zero four eight had no response. Generally, more of the respondents favored punishment than those who opposed it.

When assessing the effect of political affiliations, more than half of the participants favored the death penalty, with the rest of the respondents opposing the idea. Independent respondents followed with the favor of sixty two point seven one percent while those from the Democratic Party accounted for fifty-two point four three percent.

Sex being the primary control variable in the computation revealed men to support the idea more than females. For the men, fifty-eight points seven in the Democratic party favored the death penalty, sixty-three point three seven independent respondents, and ninety-three point one Republicans. Forty-one point three zero percent of democratic men opposed the idea, thirty-four point six three independent respondents, and close to seven percent Republicans. For the women, forty-eight point two nine Democrats favored the idea, sixty-point zero three independent respondents, and eighty point two nine republicans. Democratic women strongly opposed the idea than other female respondents. The data reveals that men support capital punishment more than women.

Conclusion

In conclusion, many people have continuously resented about the current state of executing offenders in the United States. Various people have contradicting opinions about the form of punishment, with some strongly agreeing and others disagreeing. However, in the United States, many people inclined to the Republican Party are said to strongly support the punishment more than people from other political affiliations. One’s support towards capital punishment acts as a significant determinant to whether a person gets help from the citizens during elections. Men in the United States have contentment with the use of death penalty more than the women and have a main influence from their lack of empathy. Statistical computations helped to check the effectiveness of the proposed hypothesis in determining whether Republicans supported execution of offenders more than other people. The various computations happened on GSS data and revealed that the proposed hypothesis was working. Republicans favored the use of capital punishment than people from other political affiliations. The data also showed that men had more substantial support for the form of punishment compared to women in the country. However both genders are relatively high in supporting the punishment. A person’s political beliefs and sex can control support for minimum wage. People need to have adequate knowledge concerning death penalty for them to make informed decisions rather than personal opinions that are not valid.

References

Arango, T (2019). “Democrats Rethink the Death Penalty and Its Politics.” International New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/us/politics/death-penalty-democrats.html

Cochran K. J., & Michel, C. (2011) The Effects of Information on Change in Death Penalty Support: Race- and Gender-Specific Extensions of the Marshall Hypothesis. https://doi/10.1080/15377938.2011.609430/

John K. C, Denise Paquette B. &Mitchell B. C. (2006) Political Identity And Support For Capital Punishment: A Test Of Attribution Theory, Journal of Crime and Justice, 29:1, 45-79,  https://doi/10.1080/0735648X.2006.9721217/

Sethuraju, R., Sole, J., & Oliver, B. E. (2016). Understanding Death Penalty Support and Opposition Among Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Students. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015624952