Capital punishment is a method of retributive punishment as old as civilization itself and is a necessary tool to maintain order. Many people have long asserted the deterrent power of capital punishment as an obvious fact; the fear of penalty deters people from committing crimes. Basically, the death penalty makes potential capital offenders think about whether committing a crime is really worth their lives. There is no way prove, with any certainty, how many would-be murderers were, in fact, deterred from killing by capital punishment but statistics show, that it is a deterrent (United States 1 - 17). If capital punishment were carried out more often, it would prove to be a crime deterrent. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives were at stake. Statistics show that the amount of capital punishment cases in the United States that are actually sentenced to death are very small (United States 1). I believe that capital punishment should be utilized more often in order to effectively deter and incapacitate violent criminals.
Before there were prisons, there was the penalty of death. In ancient times, executions were usually accomplished by stoning (Johnson 3 - 4). These brutal events were often little more than spontaneous eruptions of mob violence (Johnson 5). Stoning remained the dominant form of execution for hundreds of years, and gradually, the practice became, if not more civilized, at least more ritualized and formal (Johnson 16 - 17). Among the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, a clear etiquette of execution emerged (Johnson 24). In England, those who were convicted were hung or drawn and quartered (Johnson 18). A prisoner was taken from his prison cell and laid out so that a horse could be tied to each of his limbs (Costanzo 4). The horses were then instructed to pull in different directions so as to pull the prisoner apart (Johnson 18).
