Justifying Capital Punishment for Violent Offenders (Research Paper Sample)

Justifying Capital Punishment for Violent Offenders
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Justifying Capital Punishment for Violent Offenders
Terminal or capital punishment is an infrequently used crime deterrent and victims' and society retribution legal judgment. Most legal minds feel that it mainly gets vengeance for a victim's family than rehabilitating a criminal. Many justice systems capitally reprimand murderers. In other jurisdictions, spies, children's rapists, violent robbers, and violent adult rapists also qualify for capital reprimand. States should punish murderers, spies, and rapists by execution since they premeditatedly take other people's lives, expose state secrets, or harm and maim innocent people for life.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty extensively enforced and preferred for murder cases. Although lawsuits pursuing capital punishment are usually costlier than other crime litigations, it is a befitting sentence that matches the offense level (murder). Most death row convicts commit their killings or crimes in "the heat of passion," under the influence of drugs or when mentally handicapped (Pojman, 2005, p. 62). Murder is a crime for which a criminal cannot be rehabilitated due to the risk of reoffending if released back into society. Just as Abele (2011) states, "deterrence cannot work when it comes to crimes of passion," which qualifies the death sentence to punish murderers commensurate to their crime. This prison term condemns an offender to die by execution or injection. Therefore, capital punishment is justifiable in murder cases since it fits an offender's crime of taking life.
Spies knowingly jeopardize a nation's security. They collect and expose a nation's secrets either freely or at a cost. This capital crime puts millions, and sometimes billions, of people's lives at risk. In such a case, capital punishment serves "the two distinct social purposes" of "retribution and deterrence" (McLeod, 2018, p. 1124). Although spies' actions are not outright violent, the consequences are; they sell or expose sensitive information that has potential violent repercussions. For instance, Jerry Chun Shing Lee disclosed CIA secrets to the Chinese for a cumulative $840 000 between 2010 to 2012, leading to the disappearance, death, or imprisonment of dozens of informants (Montague, 2019). Legally electrocuting or administering a poisonous injection in such heinous crimes warns others of the consequences of their actions. In all, spies should be punished by the death sentence since they collect, steal, and expose or sell state secrets, exposing sensitive information that puts people's lives in danger.
Rapists are a similar category of criminals, more so child rapists and violent adult rapists. They inflict pain, hurt, maim, and take away the innocence of young children. Putting them on death row is commensurate to their crime. According to Stimson (2019), the state should execute such offenders for the penological purpose of general and specific deterrence. Executing these offenders sends a general message to others contemplating similar crimes that their actions will lead to death. It also ascertains explicitly that the convict will not live to hurt, maim, or violently rape another person. Therefore, terminal punishment is a befitting and commensurate punishment for violent rapists, for it deters reoffending society-wide and by the specific delinquent.
Overall, capital punishment or the death sentence is justified in murder, rape, and espio