by Grace Schlimpert
The looming threat of execution is a great incentive not to commit horrendous crimes. As of 2017, at least 993 executions took place in twenty-three known countries, which is 4% lower than 2016, and 39% lower than 2015.
The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is the most severe form of corporal punishment as it requires law enforcement officers to kill the convicted offender. The death penalty can be carried out via lethal injection, hanging by the neck, gassing, firing squad, and even guillotine. Though the most common is lethal injection since it is believed to be the most humane.
Offenses punishable by execution include offenses resulting in death, espionage, genocide, assassination or kidnapping resulting in the death of the President or Vice President, treason, murder involving torture, and aircraft hijacking.
Officials do not punish via death penalty based on personal bias, according to the list supplied by deathpenalty.procon.org, only the most heinous crimes are punishable by execution. Four out of every ten death row inmates in California are white, which is roughly half. The California death row population is pretty much evenly split between whites and other ethnicities.
Governor Gavin Newsom of California announced that no executions will occur on his watch, sparing the lives of 737 inmates currently on death row.
“I do not believe that a civilized society can claim to be a leader in the world as long as it’s government continues to sanction the premeditated and discriminatory execution of its people,” Newsom commented.
Although America has hundreds of people on death row, there are many other countries that have a significantly higher number of executions. People need to see the necessity of capital punishment and realize the U.S. judicial system is not biased according to race or religion.
Capital punishment should remain legal in the United States in order to deter crime and lower murder rates.