Persuasive Speech Strategy
Specific Purpose: To persuade the audience that Capital Punishment does not deter crime and that it should be abolished.
Central Idea: Homicide rates are lower in non-death penalty states when compared to states with the death penalty.
Main Points: I. The death penalty has no deterrent effect. II. The costs of administrating capital punishment are prohibitive. III. States with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those without it.
Question of Policy: Should the Death Penalty be abolished?
Attention Getter: Attention Getter: Is it moral? Is it an efficient deterrent to crime? Is it allowable under the U.S constitution? These are questions one should ask when
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Body:
I. The death penalty has no deterrent effect
A. People commit murders largely in the heat of passion, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they are mentally ill, giving little or no thought to the possible consequences of their acts.
1. Claims that each execution deters a certain number of murders have been thoroughly discredited by social science research.
a. According to the economist’s voice, the few that do commit pre-meditated murders will be more affected with life in prison.
1. Being in prison for life is tough enough, life imprisonment breaks down one’s mental health which is more detrimental and serves more as a “payback” to the murderer. 2. Death row in essence is the “easy way out” for these criminals.
B. The time it takes for a prisoner to be executed has doubled since 2002.
1. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it now takes on average about 178 months (about 15 years) for an execution occurs.
2. If all this time wasn’t wasted, $3 million could have been saved as opposed spending $5 million to keep the prisoner on death row.
C. Unlike the general population of prisoners, those who await Death row remain in solitary confinement. 1. Death row inmate lives in a constant uncertainty of when they will be executed
a. This isolation and anxiety results in a sharp deterioration of their physical and mental status.
II. The costs of administering capital punishment are prohibitive.
A.
Keeping a prisoner in jail for life will be very expensive considering that it costs $80,000 a year; and the bad news is that the money comes from the taxpayer's pocket. Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man who might be executed. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year. This may sound awkward, but the death penalty saves lives. It saves lives because it stops those who murder from ever murdering again (Bryant). These opinions represent some of the strongest and most influential views that proponents hold. However, if our prison system could rehabilitate more effectively, perhaps those who murdered once, could change.
Professor Robert B. Ekelund of Auburn University and his colleagues analyzed the effect that executions have on single murder rates, while there was no effect on multiple murder rates”. In another study, Professor Robert B. Ekelund did find that “capital punishment does, in fact, save lives. Each additional execution appears to deter between three and 18 murders”. Professor Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders. By using state-level panel data from 1960 to 2000 they came up with three crucial findings. “First, each execution, on average, is associated with three fewer muders. The deterred murders include both crimes of passion and murders by inmates. Second, executions deter
To illustrate just how absurd the theory of deterrence is, research by the New York Times found that states without the death penalty actually have lower homicide rates than states that support the death penalty. The New York Times states that "ten out of twelve states without the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average, whereas half of the states with enforced capital punishment have homicide rates above the national average" (Harrison). In 2005, there
Death row, in English-speaking countries that have capital punishment, is the place, often a section of a prison, that houses prisoners awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. After persons are found guilty of an offence and sentenced to death, they remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures.
There is the notion that the death penalty will steer people away from committing crimes. In "a report by the National Research Council,
The ongoing problem of the death penalty system in California is the ineffective and expensive process between sentencing and executing. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a national non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment, published the total numbers of death row inmates by states on July 1, 2016. From the data, California has the largest death rows in America. There are 741 inmates on death row in California. The next is 396 in Florida and 254 in Texas. However, there are just 13 executed prisons in California since the reinstatement of death penalty in 1978. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), operating all prisons and parole systems in California, published a document to analyze the time of execution. According to the statistics, the average time served on death row is 17.9 years and the average age at time of execution is 49 years old. A typical example is Clarence Ray Allen, who had been convicted in 1982, but he has not been executed until 2006. After the execution, one of the victims’ family members claimed that “it has taken 23 years but justice has prevailed today. Mr. Allen abused the justice system with endless appeals until he lived longer in prison than the short 17 years of Josephine’s life” (“Clarence Ray Allen Summary” 4). The case of Allen reflects that most of the prisons stay on the death row for more than two
B. Subpoint: One may believe that the money being used for the execution could be used to help other issues within the state. Some of the issues it could help with could possibly be helping build more prisons to house the criminals, and helping within the school system.
A. The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that could never be rectified.
It can be said that death row prisoners seen to spend around 10 years waiting for their execution. However this can progress to even 20 years in prison before their execution. It can be argued that this is a problem as it can be seen that the inmate is receiving two punishments; the punishment of death and the punishment of being isolate in solitary confinement for many years. A Source from Bureau of justice statistics suggests that the time scale between sentencing and execution is constantly rising. This long wait
There are numerous measurements that indicate the achievement of the death penalty. A few studies demonstrate a solid connection amongst's execution and the determent of violations, particularly kill. Such studies "propose that death penalty has a solid impediment impact, every execution results, by and large, in 18 less murders—with a room for give and take of give or take ten. Tests demonstrate that outcomes are not driven by harder sentencing laws." (Ellsworth 116). While this information is profoundly subjective and considers the national normal (rather than an area or city) it shows that viciousness is lessened. Albeit intense sentences that are forced for genuine non-capital violations are by and large greatly high, it is intriguing that
I find no conclusive evidence to support the view that the death penalty is or is not an effective deterrent in controlling crime. Opponents of capital punishment argue that it is not a deterrent, because in some states where capital punishment is allowed the crime rate goes up. Others argue that capital punishment deters violent crime, though it is difficult to provide numerical evidence. Dozens of studies have examined the relationship between murder and the death penalty comparing murder rates in areas with the death penalty to those in areas without the death penalty. Murder rates have been examined when the death penalty was added or removed in various areas and countries. None of these studies establish that the death penalty
The death penalty has been one of the most debatable and contentious issues facing the American public for many years. This paper proposes a study that analyzes the theory which holds that the death penalty will prevent people from committing heinous crimes. Two hypotheses oversee this study: 1) States that have a death penalty law will have lower rates of crimes punishable by death than states without death penalty laws, and 2) States that have the most executions will have fewer crimes punishable by death than states that do not execute often and those without a death penalty law. To examine each of these hypotheses, I propose two case studies that will be conducted with two States satisfying requirements for not having or
Murder, a common occurrence in American society, is thought of as a horrible, reprehensible atrocity. Why then, is it thought of differently when the state government arranges and executes a human being, the very definition of premeditated murder? Capital punishment has been reviewed and studied for many years, exposing several inequities and weaknesses, showing the need for the death penalty to be abolished.
Analyzing the above study closer, one might find that the threat of capital punishment greatly reduces the murder rate. But if that was the case, sociologists could show the effect of capital punishment by statistics, which they cannot do. Schola rs have compared murder rates of the states which frequently practice capital punishment against those states that rarely enforce capital punsihment with inconclusive results.
Scores of researchers, including such eminent criminologists as Edward Sutherland and Thorsten Sellin, have examined the possibility that the death penalty has a greater deterrent effect on homicide rates than long-term. While some econometric studies have claimed to find deterrent effects; these studies have been sharply criticized. Overall, the vast majority of deterrence studies have failed to support the hypothesis that the death penalty is a more effective deterrent to criminal homicides than long imprisonment. As two of this country's most experienced deterrence researchers conclude after their review of recent scholarship, "The available evidence remains 'clear and abundant' that,