The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is currently allowed in 31 states in the U. S. Thousands of inmates have been sentenced to death row and await years before their execution. There are currently 2 843 inmates on death row. As of 2012, the average time between sentencing and leaving death row was almost 16 years. Less than 25 percent of inmates who left death row between 1973 and 2013 were executed, while 65 percent left due to commuted or overturned sentences.
The death penalty is a costly, ineffective method of punishment. There are other possibilities that are more beneficial to society, such as isolating someone from society by sentencing them to life in prison. The death penalty is flawed due to being subject to human error and bias. There have been numerous accounts of exonerations of death row inmates after being falsely accused.
Capital punishment is an outdated system that needs to be reevaluated in the 21st century. The death penalty dates back to the beginning of the United States, and we are currently the only Western country applying the death penalty. The United States has one of the highest execution rates in the world; from 2007 to 2011, our rates were comparable to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, North Korea, Iran, and China. These are not countries that one would expect the U. S. to be aligned with in terms of human rights measures. The eighth amendment prohibits the federal government from using cruel and unusual punishment. Although the death penalty has been upheld by the Supreme Court as not violating the eighth amendment, the death penalty is opposed by the United Nations and contradicts other declarations that the U. S. has made in support of human rights. The U. S. was a signer of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights back in 1948, which clearly states that "life is a human right." In addition, we endorsed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Supreme Court actually cited when it banned capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Our continued support for the death penalty is in direct conflict with these stated beliefs as an industrialized country that supports human rights around the world. . We have matured as a society since the constitution was written, and the fact that no other Western country allows the death penalty reinforces that this should no longer be an acceptable form of punishment in the U. S.
In addition to the ethical argument about the death penalty, there are many concerns that the death penalty is biased toward people of color and the poor. The human decision-making and influencing factors from the courts themselves, juries, and the public make minorities more likely to receive the death penalty. In fact, in 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Committee requested that the U. S. review its capital punishment laws and practices as the Committee found potential bias against minorities and low-income individuals. A study by the Sentencing Project found th...
