Corrections System

Some Judicial Systems Hold That The Correction For Certain Crimes Calls for Execution

• This answer neither condones nor condemns capital punishment Laws in Judicial Systems whose citizens have fairly and democraticly established their particular Code of Law that addresses the death penalty.

• The word "correct" means the act or process of correcting. Correction can be in the form of something offered or substituted for a mistake or fault. Correction may be the punishment intended to rehabilitate or improve criminal offenders through a system of penal incarceration, rehabilitation, probation, and parole.

• Execution is not an acceptable form of Correction in some societies.

• In the juducial systems in other societies their Laws can, and do, rule that the appropriate offering necessary as atonement for particular crimes must be the life of the convicted offender. These crimes are called "Capital Offenses" and the Law stipulates that the appropriate Correction for these particular crimes can be the execution of the convicted offender.

• Some Jurisdictions are very specific about executions. Self-confessed and legally convicted murderer, Gary Gilmore, chose to be tried and sentenced to death in Utah because the appropriate Correction for his crime called for "blood atonement". He died quickly at the hands (bullets) of a firing squad instead of slower and more agonizing death by electrocution, by hanging, by the gas chamber or by other methods of execution.

• Convicted offenders are executed in Correctional Facilities. However, the pimary purpose of the Correctional facility remains rehabilitation, etc.

• Those marked for execution are housed separate and apart from the main prisoner population in special units called "Death Row" or "Maximum Security Units".

• The fact remains that the executions are carried out by the Department of Corrections and that the executions are carried out at facilities of the Department of Corrections.

• While many ordinary citizens can be so outraged at particularly heinous criminals, that they claim that they, themselves, could execute the offender, The killing of another person, either justified or not justified, can have indelible emotional and psychological consequences. While their anger is worthy of empathy, they would be well advised to leave the job to the professionals, the executioners.

AnswerCorrectional facilities are just for that, "correcting the person in prison." There is no death penalty in these places. Death row is where a criminal is put to await execution.

However, if put in a State prison for murder and the individual have been fairly convicted due to good evidence then I could pull that switch if need be. Do the math on what it costs tax payers every year for each prisoner. It's staggering. These criminals can't be let back out into society EVER!

YOU DO THE CRIME YOU DO THE TIME or LIVE BY THE SWORD, DIE BY THE SWORD!

Canadian Correctional Institutions are just for that, CorrectionsIt was my error for not taking into consideration about the U.S. The answer at the top is excellent and informative. I am Canadian and our Correctional Institutions are just for that, Correction.

I understand what the poster is saying in leaving the punishment up to the justice system is correct, and my comment of "I could pull the switch myself" was a statement and I would NOT take justice into my own hands. I was a witness at an execution (hanging) for my cousin who was brutally raped, tortured and left stuffed in a tree trunk. I watched it and felt nothing! As far as I was concerned the perpetrator got what he deserved! There is no room for bleeding hearts when it comes to cold-blooded murder and especially when it's inflicted on children. Even the inmates of prison can't stand these people and that's why these types of prisoners is segregated from the rest of the prisoners. You kill a child you might as well end your life right then and there or they'll do it for you. Dahmer is a good case study. Here are the correct statistics and the reasoning for it (some pro/con):

Executions since 1976, by jurisdiction Jurisdiction Executionssince 1976(as of August 31, 2006)[1] Inmates on Death Row(as of April 1, 2006)[2] Texas 373 404 Virginia 97 22 Oklahoma 83 93 Missouri 66 52 Florida 60 392 North Carolina 43 188 Georgia 39 107 South Carolina 36 71 Alabama 34 191 Arkansas 27 38 Louisiana 27 88 Ohio 23 195 Arizona 22 126 Indiana 17 24 Delaware 14 17 California 13 652 Illinois 12 9 Nevada 12 81 Mississippi 7 67 Utah 6 9 Maryland 5 8 Washington 4 9 Nebraska 3 10 Pennsylvania 3 232 U.S. Federal Government 3 41 Kentucky 2 37 Montana 3 4 Oregon 2 33 Tennessee 2 108 Colorado 1 2 Connecticut 1 8 Idaho 1 20 New Mexico 1 2 Wyoming 1 2 Kansas 0 8 New Hampshire 0 0 New Jersey 0 13 New York(On June 24, 2004, the death penalty statute of New York was declared unconstitutional) 0 1 South Dakota 0 4 U.S. Military 0 9 United Statestotal 1,042 3,370*

NO CURRENT DEATH PENALTY STATUTE: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

• Some inmates are on death row in more than one state, so the total may be lower than sum of state numbers.

Capital punishment in the United States is officially sanctioned by 38 of the 50 states, as well as by the federal government and the military. The overwhelming majority of executions are performed by the states; the federal government maintains the right to use capital punishment (also known as the death penalty) but does so relatively infrequently. Each state practicing capital punishment has different laws regarding its methods, age limits, and crimes which qualify. The state of Texas has performed more executions than any other state.

Capital punishment is a highly charged issue with many groups and prominent individuals participating in the debate. Arguments for and against it are based on moral, practical, religious, and emotional grounds. Advocates of the death penalty argue that it deters crime, improves the community by making sure that convicted criminals do not find their way out onto the streets to offend again and is cheaper than keeping convicted criminals in high security prison for the rest of their natural lives. Opponents of the death penalty claim that "capital punishment cheapens human life and puts government on the same low moral level as criminals who have taken life." [3].

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 there have been 1024 executions in the United States (as of May 24, 2006).[4] There were 60 executions in 2005.[5]

67% of capital convictions are eventually overturned, mainly on procedural grounds of incompetent legal counsel, police or prosecutors who suppressed evidence and judges who gave jurors the wrong instructions.[6][7] Seven percent of those whose sentences were overturned between 1973 and 1995 have been acquitted. Ten percent were retried and resentenced to death.[8]

HistoryThe Espy file lists less than 15,000 people executed in the United States and its predecessors between 1608 and 1991. 4,661 executions occurred in the U.S. in the period 1930 to 2002 with about two-thirds of the executions occurring in the first 20 years.[9] Additionally the United States Army executed 160 soldiers between 1930 and 1961. The last United States Navy execution was in 1849.

The largest single execution in United States history was the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men convicted of murder and rape in the Sioux Uprising. They were executed simultaneously on December 26, 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota. A single blow from an ax cut the rope that held the large four-sided platform, and the prisoners (except for one whose rope had broken, and who consequently had to be restrung) fell to their deaths. [10] The second largest mass execution in United States history was also a hanging: the execution of 13 African American soldiers for their parts in the Houston Riot. Notably, both incidents involved ethnic minority defendants, and military tribunal judgments in time of war.

Capital punishment was suspended in the United States between 1973 and 1976 as a result of several decisions of the United States Supreme Court, primarily the case of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). In this case, the court found the application of the death penalty to be unconstitutional, on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth amendment to the United States Constitution.

In Furman, the United States Supreme Court specifically struck down Georgia's "unitary trial" procedure, in which the jury was asked to return a verdict of guilt or innocence and, simultaneously, determine whether the defendant would be punished by death or life imprisonment. Their line of reasoning was further clarified in the Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976) and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976), 431 U.S. 633 (1977), which explicitly forbade any state from punishing a specific form of murder (such as that of a police officer) with a mandatory death penalty. The 1977 Coker v. Georgia ruling barred the death penalty for rape of a 16 year old married female, and, by implication, for any offense other than murder.

In 1976, contemporaneously with Woodson and Roberts, the Court decided Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) and upheld a procedure in which the trial of capital crimes was bifurcated into guilt-innocence and sentencing phases. At the first proceeding, the jury decides the defendant's guilt; if he is innocent, of course, or otherwise not convicted of first-degree murder, the death penalty will not be imposed. At the second hearing, the jury decides the facts necessary to support imposing the death sentence, and in many jurisdictions, the ultimate penalty as well -- either death or life in prison, either with or without parole.

Executions resumed on January 17, 1977 when Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in Utah. Since 1976, 1,029 people have been executed, almost exclusively by the states. Texas has accounted for over a third of modern executions (362 as of March 30, 2006); the federal government has executed only 3 people in the last 27 years. California has the greatest number of prisoners on death row, but has held relatively few executions. Throw Away The Key, a group that advocates tougher sentences and victim's rights, estimates that about 1800 people were murdered by the first 1000 people executed since 1976. This is out of a total of 600,000 people murdered in the United States since 1975.