By 1963, lawmakers abolished mandatory capital punishment laws and discretion in sentencing became a prominent shift in criminal justice policy. While the use of capital punishment started to diminish, it remained a popular tool for most states, especially for offenses committed by slaves. In the early to mid-Nineteenth Century, the abolitionist movement gained momentum inspiring states like Pennsylvania and Michigan to become the first states to remove the death penalty from most crimes, and for Wisconsin, all crimes. Since 1612, laws around capital punishment have varied from state-to-state. In 1612, the governor of Virginia made the death penalty an applicable punishment for minuscule offenses, such as battery of one’s mother or killing of one’s chickens. European settlers brought the practice to the states, where it became an accepted practice after the first recorded execution of Captain George Kendall in the Jamestown colony of Virginia in 1608. While the fears and concerns on both sides of the issue are valid, a look into the death penalty as a political issue is worth further review and can lead to a better understanding of the future of the death penalty in the U.S.Ĭapital Punishment does not originate in the U.S.
On one side of the issue, some people abhor the percentage of innocent people on death row sentenced to death, while proponents of the death penalty fear the possibility of recidivism for perpetrators of violent crimes. As it now stands, roughly 60% of the population favors life imprisonment (with no parole) over the death penalty, while 55% of the population supports the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, as opposed to 43% of those who do not. According to the Gallup polls, current trends in favor of the death penalty have decreased tremendously since its peak of public approval in 1994. With the advancement of society and access to resources such as books, documentaries, podcasts, and movies, the public has learned more about the death penalty in recent years and subsequently has shifted its perspective on the act.
Christina Prinvil is a staff writer for Brief Policy Perspectives and a first-year MPP student.
0 kommentar(er)
