Death Penalty

The Death Penalty

Zarianna Hurley

Sociology 1010

Professor Mellissa McKenna

November 4, 2014

What do you think about the death penalty? Is there anything you would change about the process of it? Do you think there is a better way to deal with murders and rapists? These are the questions that I asked not only myself, but many people while writing this paper. It is my opinion most people will be for the death penalty. To support my thesis I need to start with the history of the death penalty.

The Death Penalty is something we all think of when we hear of horrific crimes such as, child molestation and murder. The definition is when the law sentences the criminal who took the life of another human to death. There are many different ways that this can take place. The most used form of the death penalty is lethal injection and it is used in 35 states plus U.S.

Military and U.S. Government. Other states offer electrocution, hanging, gas chambers, and firing squad if the lethal injection method is found unconstitutional.

There is a long history behind the death penalty. For example in the Eighteenth Century B.C., King Hammaurabi of Babylon was codified for 25 different crime. In B.C. times, death penalty options were crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, burning alive, and impalement. I don't think you had an option back then either. I believe that the person who sentenced you chose what you were to get.

Britain in the Tenth Century A.D. used hanging as the usual method of execution. William the Conqueror in the next century only allowed hanging when it was during the war times. But, in the Sixteenth Century, Henry Vlll didn't like that idea. During his reign as many as 72,000 people were estimated to...