There is always a lot of controversy when discussing Capital Punishment. People argue for different reason, whether it is about deterrent effect, morality, if it is just, and whether it should be an accepted form of punishment. The death penalty has been used for a long time throughout history, before the 1800s. As a part of the Corrections department, it seems ironic, because when sentencing someone to death there is no form of correction or rehabilitation. The case for capital punishment being useful in our society is a hard one to fight for many reasons. There are problems of consistency, proof of deterrence, the cost, and, importantly, public opinion. There are a few things that can be changed in order to help the effectiveness that the criminal justice is trying for, and there are also alternatives to the death penalty that can be good.
             In the United States there have been major concerns over using the death penalty because of the erratic use of it in the past. "The forty-three persons who were involuntarily executed from 1982 to 1985 were among a death row population of more than 16000 condemned to execution out of about 20,000 who committed non-negligent homicides per year" (Greenberg 5). The numbers fluctuate frequently on death row due to the overwhelming forty-five percent that are pardoned from their capital punishment sentence (Greenberg 2). The erratic use is not only in the number of people executed however; it continues to be evident in the economic realm as well. "Convictions and sentencing to death of murders is related to their socio-economic positions in the jurisdiction; more murderers who are executed come from lower socio-economic levels than do murderers who are convicted but not executed" (1972 3). Race and the geographical location of criminals appear to be yet, two more cases where inconsistency is present. "It has been employed almost exclusively in a few formerly slave-h...