death penalty infographic

THE DEATH PENALTY

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment.

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Greggio Beatrice, Pezzolo Giorgia, Fruch Alessandro

HISTORY

- The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. - In the Tenth Century A.D., hanging became the usual method of execution in Britain. Some common methods of execution at that time were boiling, burning at the stake, hanging, beheading, drawing and quartering.The number of capital crimes in Britain continued to rise throughout the next two centuries. - By the 1700s, 222 crimes were punishable by death in Britain, including stealing, cutting down a tree, and robbing a rabbit warren. From 1823 to 1837, the death penalty was eliminated for over 100 of the 222 crimes punishable by death. (Randa, 1997).

ARGUMENTS FOR DEATH PENALTY

• Retribution
• Deterrence
• Rehabilitation
• Prevention of re-offending
• Closure and vindication
• Incentive to help police
• The punishment fits the crime
• The death penalty serves as an important bargaining point
• Victims' families largely support the death penalty

ARGUMENTS AGAINST DEATH PENALTY

• It’s inhuman
• It inflicts psychological torment
• It burdens taxpayers
• It doesn’t deter crime
• It doesn’t address the root causes of crime
• It’s biased against people experiencing poverty
• It’s disproportionately hurts people with

Disabilities

• It has a racial bias
• It’s used as a tool of authoritarianism
• It’s irreversible

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

More than 70% of the world’s countries have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. However, the death penalty continues to exist in many parts of the world, especially in countries with large populations and those with authoritarian rule. In recent decades many countries have either abolished the death penalty or discontinued its use. The U.S. remains an outlier among its close allies and other democracies in its continued application of the death penalty.

OUR OPINION

Beatrice: In my opinion, the death penalty should be a type of punishment that is used only in the case in which a person steals the life of someone else, because in that situation he or she has done an irreversible crime, that for me should be punished with the highest type of penalty. Giorgia: I reckon that in some situations the death penalty could be the right sentence because most crimes are still being committed, like murder or rape, and maybe if people knew that commiting those crimes there would be this sentence , I hope that they would stop. Alessandro: I don't have a fully formed opinion on this topic, it is very complicated and hard to decide on something like the death penalty. i tend to think that it should not be used: i don't think the government should have the authority to do something like that