Running Head Capital Punishment Is Capital Punishment Justified? WeathersbeeEmbry Riddle Aeronautical University Capital Punishment 2AbstractCapital Punishment is the extreme penalty for crime. Such methods as drowning, stoning, hanging, and beheading have been used to carry out execution of criminals for a great variety of offenses. Modern executions are usually done by means of electrocution, the gas chamber, or a lethal injection of a drug. Hanging is still used in some places, as is execution by firing squad. The question is not how one personally feels about capital punishment, but whether or not capital punishment is justified. I say that that is a justification reserved only for one person…God. Capital Punishment 3The main reason for combating crime and enforcing punishment is to prevent the disintegration of society. In other words, the preamble to the United States Constitution uses the phrase “to insure domestic Tranquillity” to describe this goal. Over the years, different reasons have been used as justification for punishment.Revenge is the most natural motive people have had for wanting to inflict punishment. The argument is simple, the person that has harmed someone should have harm inflicted upon him. Is this the society that we are today in modern society? Revenge is still the most common motive for the use of punishment, especially as a response to the most brutal and senseless crimes. But the revenge motive, of course, is usually left on the curb a long way from the courthouse. The justification used in the courthouse is deterrence. Deterrence is the notion that the threat of punishment will prevent criminal activity. It presumes that individuals act rationally in their own interests and therefore will seek to escape the pain that punishment brings. Deterrence was intended for the law-abiding individual as well as those prone to criminal behavio...
