Capital Punishment †The Debate Continues :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

        As the war on crime continues, two truths hold potent  eliminating allcrime is impossible, and controlling it is a must.  The main weapon used tocontrol crime in this war is deterrence.  The governments deterrent forcommitting murder is the death penalty.  The revere of death will non deter everyperson who contemplates murder from doing it.  Whether it is for religiousreasons and the hope of salvation or something else, stopping some wad is notpossible (Cohen 48).  The intent is not to stop those people, but instead everyother would-be killer.  Capital Punishment has been in the national spotlightfor many another(prenominal) years and the center of the debate still remains whether it actuallydeters would be offenders.  Does this age-old penalty for the ultimate sinachieve its goal?  There ar many lofty and rational arguments on both sides ofthis issue.         Advocates of t he death penalty claim that the primary reason for thisharsh punishment is that the fear of death discourages people from committingmurder.  The main ways in which they support this theory are  the severity ofthe punishment, various polls of citizens and pris mavinrs, and two in particularstudies.         The most obvious deterring exculpation is the severity of punishment(Calebresi 19).  This means, put simply, to punish for a crime in a way that thepunishment outweighs the crime.  If the punishment for robbing a bank is tospend one day in jail, then bank robbing would become a daily occurance.  On thesame note, if there is a reward for a lost spot of jewelry and the reward isless than the selling price for that jewelry, the finder has no reason to bringit back.  On the other hand, if the reward exceeds the value of the jewelry, thenew proprietor will bring it back very promptly.  In the case of capital punishment,if a p erson wants someone dead badly enough, and the punishment for murder is ashort stay in prison, what will possibly keep that person from doing theunthinkable (Van Den Haag 68).  If a person is afraid for their life, then thestakes for their actions are much higher, probably even too high for most people.         Many psychologists believe that these stakes do not even have to be inconscious thought for them to work.  The theory is that a persons conscienceweighs out many factors in all instances.  While a would-be offender might becontemplating the deed, the death penalty imbeds itself  into that personssubconscience as a possible consequence of their actions, and thus the