Is Capital Punishment Effective Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Is Capital Punishment Effective - Essay Example 2). However, sound policy should not be based on what is popular. Rather, the best indicator that capital punishment makes sense from a public policy perspective is arguably its success as a deterrent of crime. The deterrent effect of capital punishment has been debated for some time. Studies on the extent to which the death penalty actually causes a decrease in the incidents of murder and other violent crime have produced mixed results. Nevertheless, recent moves by several states to impose moratoria on capital punishment have offered a novel opportunity to assess the impact of a suspension of the death penalty. For the first time, it has been possible to directly compare and contrast violent crime statistics in several jurisdictions both pre- and post-moratorium. This has shown a clear and substantial correlation between elimination of capital punishment and increase in incidents of murder. This paper discusses the evolution and current state of capital punishment in the United States. It will survey the seminal Supreme Court cases on the topic; and will consider empirical evidence that substantiates the effect of the death penalty as a deterrent. Not only is the death penalty appropriate within a democratic society in which the overwhelming majority of people support it; but it is also a reasonable public policy choice given the evidence substantiating its deterrent effect. The 20th Century was a very active period for application o... unishment declined somewhat in the 1940s and 1950s, executions were still much more frequent than today: approximately 130 a year in the 1940s and 75 a year during the 1950s, compared to an average of 48 per year in the 1990s. Over 65% of the American public approved of the death penalty during these decades" (Dezhbakhsh & Shepherd, par.10). The 1950s and 1960s witnessed a decline in support for the death penalty, with its lowest point coming in at 42% in 1966. "Opposition to the death penalty increased because of growing doubts about the morality of the death penalty, awareness of Western Europe's abandonment of capital punishment, abatement of the 1930s crime wave, lack of deterrence evidence, widespread belief in the racially discriminatory use of the death penalty, and increasing concern about the arbitrariness of death penalty sentences" (par. 11). The number of executions began to decline, reflecting the drop in public support. The movement of states away from mandatory death sentence statutes and toward discretionary statutes whereby juries had the power to decide whether or not a particular case warranted the death penalty led to an arbitrary application of capital punishment that raised questions about its constitutionality. This period culminated in the Supreme Court's Furman decision, 408 U.S. 238, in which the Court held that "the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty in these cases constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments" (Furman v. Georgia, 1972). The holding in Furman essentially found "that discretionary capital statutes resulted in arbitrary sentencing, violating the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishment clause. This decision effectively voided the death penalty statutes of all

Literary analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Literary analysis - Essay Example Welty portrays the treatment meted out to the old woman in an eloquent manner, such that, the real life scenarios and the hardships faced by people due to factors like race, sex, religion and color can be clearly related with the story. The beginning of the story is so wavering that one tends to feel that there is no goal in the story, but at the end of both the story and the journey of Phoenix, one gets to understand the ultimate goal that Welty tried to present. Hardship, racism, solitude and indomitable love towards her grandson build the theme of the story, running their roots till the last part of it. Before progressing towards analyzing the literary aspects of the story being told, it is well worth to mention how well Welty has taken efforts to express the hardships faced by the woman in terms of her physical abilities. "Her eyes were blue with age," and "She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella, and with this she kept tapping the frozen earth in front of her" (Welt y 1941) clearly express about her being blind and having to take every step with an umbrella stick. That the protagonist is very old with almost a complete lack of physical strength is expressed by the author through the words, â€Å"Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles†. ... (Dan 1973) The plot begins on a chill morning, with the winter reaching its peak in the month of December. As Phoenix begins her walk, she expresses her feelings about the wild animals that she could meet in her journey. She indicates to those animals that she has a long road ahead to travel. Although the author expresses it as a direct interpretation towards the animals, indirectly, it is also to indicate the readers that she is suffering from senility. Another example shown by the author to instill this point in reader’s mind is when she sees a scarecrow and gets afraid thinking it to be a ghost. To add more credibility to this point, the author also doesn’t forget to mention that this is a path that Phoenix used to travel frequently in past. It is important to understand the abundant amount of information that author is trying to deliver through this single scenario. At first, she tells about her physical hardships, then about the hallucinations, her long journey and most of all, her determination to be in focus towards the goal irrespective of the disabilities. Welty has carved out exquisitely the characters of the supporting cast of the story. Be it the grandson, the hunter and the nurse, their characters are portrayed in a way very similar to how old age people are treated in day to day life. The use of figures of speech like â€Å"mouth open like a littlebird† (Welty 1941), to explain the condition of her grandson, vitalizes the readers and brings out a sense of joy in them. Once Phoenix crosses the hills, she stumbles on a hunter’s dog and meets with the hunter. Despite the hunter’s helping hand, the author brings