Capital punishment :: essays research papers

Capital Punishment: A View of the punishments in America today: Capital Punishment by definition is the term used for the death penalty. Capital punishment is the most extreme of all sentencing options. In the United States capital punishment is legal in thirty-nine of the fifty states. Beginning in 1973, prison populations began a sure growth. There were 204,211 inmates in 1973, and by 1977 the number of prisoners had grown to 285,456, which later grew to 315,974 in 1980. By 1976, it was clear that the death penalty had to be reinstated. America’s twenty-one year experiment with capital punishment has resulted in a total of 392 executions, seventy eight of which took place in 1996 alone. Of these only thirty-four were federal cases, out of which thirty two were male and only two were female. Every year about 15,000 killers are charged and only about 300 wind up on death row. The death row population is constantly increasing. It is now more than 3,000. Because of constant appeals, it takes a person on death row typically between five to eight years to finally get   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Medugno 2 executed. To kill all the prisoners on death row, it is estimated that it would take two executions a day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  for seven years. Crimes such as aiding in suicide, causing a boat collision resulting in death, forced marriage, espionage, castrating another, rape, homicide, child molesting resulting in death, and conspiracy to kidnap for ransom among many others are, in some states, crimes that are punishable by death. What the law permits, however, is not always used by the courts or the executive authorities. Most executions are a result of a murder or rape, and a small number for robbery, kidnaping, burglary, aggravated assault and espionage. In the US, the death penalty is currently authorized in one of five ways: hanging, which has been the traditional method of execution throughout the English-speaking world; electrocution, which was introduced by New York State in 1890; the gas chamber which was first adopted by Nevada in 1923; the firing squad which is used only in Utah and Idaho, and lethal injection which was introduced in 1977 by Oklahoma and is the most common form of execution in the US. Capital punishment is legal in Washington State, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky,