JUSTICE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Justice: Questions and Answers

Justice: Questions and Answers

Answer 1:

There have been many controversies in the history of the United States? related to the sentencing process in the United States that has been one of the most hotly contested issues in recent decades. Sentencing or Sentencing process is the legal infliction of the death penalty on persons convicted of a crime. It is not proposed to impose any physical hurting or any torture; it is only another form of punishment. It is irrevocable because it removes those punished from society permanently? instead of temporarily imprisoning them. The usual option to the death sentencing is life-long imprisonment (Acker? Bohm? Lanier? 1998? 75-96).

Sentencing process is a method of retributive punishment as old as civilization itself. The death sentencing has been imposed all through history for many crimes? ranging from blasphemy and treason to petty theft and murder. Many old societies accepted the initiative that particular crimes warrant Sentencing process.

For the past decades the death sentencing has been one of the most hotly contested political issues in America. This debate is a complicated one. Sentencing is a legal? practical? philosophical? social? political? and moral question. The notion of deterrence has been at the very center of the practical debate over the question of sentencing or capital punishment. Most of us assume that we execute murderers primarily because we believe it will discourage others from becoming murderers. Retentionists have long asserted the deterrent power of death sentencing as an obvious fact. The fear of death deters people from committing crimes. Still? abolitionists (people against capital punishment) believe that deterrence is little more than an assumption-and a naive assumption at that (Acker? Bohm? Lanier? 1998? 75-96).

The issue of execution of an innocent person is troubling to both abolitionists and retentionists alike. Some people are frightened of this possibility enough to be convinced that sentencing should be stop and abolished. This is not true at all. The execution of innocent people is very rare because there are many safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. There is legal assistance provided and an automatic appeal for persons convicted of capital crimes. Persons under the age of eighteen? pregnant women? new mothers or persons who have become insane can not be sentenced to death (Acker? Bohm? Lanier? 1998? 75-96). Retentionists argue almost all human activities? ranging trucking to construction? costs the ...