Pros And Cons Of Capitol Punishment

14 Pages 3603 Words

The word "capital" in "capital punishment" refers to a person's head. In the

past, people were often executed by severing their head from their body. As of

2000-OCT-19, during the last decade of the 20th century, 547 prisoners were

executed in the United States -- one third of them in Texas. Another 3,500 wait

on death rows. None have been executed in Canada; that country abolished the

death punishment decades ago. The United States is one of the very few

industrialized countries in the world which executes criminals. It is one of the few

countries in the world which executes mentally ill persons, persons with very low

IQ, and child murderers. When asked whether they prefer to keep or abolish the

death penalty, about 60 to 80% of American adults say that they want to retain

capital punishment. Numbers vary depending upon the precise wording of the

question asked by the pollsters. When asked whether they would like to see

executions continue or have them replaced with a system that guaranteed:


Life imprisonment with no hope for parole, ever;

That the inmate would work in the prison to earn money;

That the money would be directed to helping the family of the person(s) that they killed,

About 60% of Americans prefer the latter system.


The American Civil Liberties Union noted that in the 1960's and 1970's

only a bare majority of Americans favored capital punishment. They believe that

"mounting fear of crime, and the cynical manipulation of the death penalty issue

by many politicians for their own political gain, led to a shift upwards." The death

penalty now has broad public support in both the United States and Canada.

Surveys in the US and Canada regularly show that a sizable majority of adults

are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers. Depending upon the

exact question asked, 65 to 80% of adults are in favor of ...