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Death Penalty


            The death penalty is a method of punishment that our country has recently re-enlisted in its fight against crime. Although people's opinions very whether statistics show the death penalty as deterrence to violent crimes I feel that it is an essential part of our justice system. .
             There are 38 states that have some form of capital punishment including: New York, Texas, and Utah. All three of these states have, experianced substantial drops in the rate of murders in their respective states. The argument that the death penalty is a non-effective punishment is not quite as sound as anti-death penalty supporters think it is. January 17, 1977, a man by the name of Gary Gilmore faced the firing squad at the Utah State prison. After that execution there were 44 murders in 1977 a 20% decrease from the year before. An entire decade later a very violent killer was put to death. In the months preceding his execution, there was an average of 4.75 murders a month, in hindsight only 4.0 murders per month, over fifteen percent decrease. .
             In 1982, the state of Texas reinstated the death penalty. In 1981 the city of Houston (Harris county) there was a record 701 murders. Since reinstating the death penalty that county has executed more murders than any other city, county, or state in the union. They have also have seen the greatest reduction in murder at 261 murders in 1996 down from 701 in 1981, that is a 270% difference.
             The argument for life imprisonment instead of death is a good one except for the fact that it just gives a murderer a chance to strike again. In 1966, a Fort Worth Texas jury sentenced a man named Kenneth McDuff to death, but the sentence was changed in 1972 when the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty. In 1989 with Texas prisons overflowing McDuff was released on unexpected counts of good citizenship.
             In 1991, he enrolled at Texas State Technical College in Waco, within months of his enrollment, girls started to turn up missing.


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