So now only 34 states in the US still have the death penalty.
Of those, only 9 states average one or more executions per year. And only one state averages 10 or more executions per year.
Further, only 14% of all US counties have actually sentenced someone to death that has led to an execution since 1977.
The death penalty is getting rarer and rarer. Yet, murder has fallen anyway.
If anyone thinks Illinois is just getting soft, please take the time to examine how this came about (Google it!). The state spent more than a decade across two governors -- one Republican and one Democrat -- to determine the practice was simply broken in Illinois. They also had a commissioned study and entertained years of public debate.
Now they have finally done away with it.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2011/03/quinn-signs-death-penalty-ban-commutes-15-death-row-sentences-to-life.html
Three states in the past decade.....while that is a fairly small percent of states, I think it shows that states are finally starting to see the truth about the death penalty. Sure, some of the reasoning behind abolishing the death penalty has to do with the idea of whether it is constitutionally ok, as well as the hot issue of is the death penalty the same as murder. But I also think that those people in power are finally seeing the truth behind the death penalty- it does not deter crime, it does not reduce crime. While the death penalty may take that one killer off the street, it is not stopping others from committing acts of murder. The way the media portrays it though, both in the news and in books/articles written about it, they make the death penalty seem like the greatest way for us to reduce the number of murders/murderers. Maybe now, with states starting to get rid of the death penalty, we will see the media start to give the true facts about how effective it is.
ReplyDeleteAlthough many people oppose this kind of action, I can see how smart it really is. They made an informed decision that will also be beneficial in these times of economic struggle. The death penalty costs more per year for each prisoner than just regular prison does. And when many on death row just sit there, it is easy to see why getting rid of the death penalty could be beneficial.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems unreasonable that the average amount of time death row prisoners spend awaiting the execution that only 1% of them will end up seeing is about 10 years. In the 1920s, for example, or even the 1930s when the most people in the United States were executed, criminals stood trial and were executed in the one to two years following their crime. Since the ten appeals prisoners are given are seen as a constitutional right, which is likely not to change, the death penalty should be abolished in favor of life sentences without the possibility of parole to save us tax dollars and the corrections system the burden of maintaining an expensive system with the costly chance of executing an innocent person. Even knowing one innocent person has been executed is enough to do away with the system.
ReplyDeleteIllinois is very well known for two things now... 1 Abraham Lincoln and 2 they got rid of the money sinking death penalty. It is a waste of time and money. If you dont use it, then you lose it. Bye Bye death penalty hopefully North Carolina will follow.
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