Capital Punishment: Arguments for Life and Death Capital Punishment is the legal infliction of the death penalty on people convicted of a crime. Today, in modern law, the death penalty is corporal punishment in its most severe form. It is irrevocable: it ends the existence of those punished, instead of temporarily imprisoning them. Few states have both capital punishment and or life imprisonment. Capital punishment is the only corporal punishment applied to adults. The usual alternative to the death penalty is life imprisonment and only applied to the greatest criminals For the past decades, capital punishment has been one of the most contested political issues in America. Capital punishment is not merely or even primarily a legal question. It is a practical and moral question. I don't have any problems with the death penalty, but only if all avenues have been investigated and nothing is questionable. It may be wrong to take a life for a life but no criminals would fear repercussions if there werent any. I believe in the concept of "an eye for an eye" and "a tooth for a tooth" because there are always consequences to the things you do. A murder should be no exception. The notion of deterrence has been at the very center of the practical debate over the question of capital punishment. The fear of death or life imprisonment deters people from committing crimes. I believe that the death penalty has a deterrent value because it removes the criminals from society so they will never be able to commit anymore crimes. Also future criminals must understand the consequences of committing a crime, such as the three strikes law where after the third time of any crime, it is lifetime in prison. If they murder once they will do it again and taking the criminals off the streets will make us safer. Abolitionists have long argued that deterrence is little more than an assumption that most murder crimes be rationally deterred by any pen...
