Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment in America

What is capital punishment? The dictionary defines capital punishment as a noun that means putting a person to death. At the end of 2003 there were 3374 inmates at 37 state and federal prisons who were on death row. That number was an 188 decrease from the statistics in 2002. Forty-seven of theses inmates were female which was a thirty-eight increases from 1993.(Lacey, Bonner) Although the number of people on the death penalty decreased the number of females on death row increased. Of the 3374 prisoners on sentenced to the death penalty fifty-six percent were white, forty-two percent were black, and the remaining two percent were of other races.

Currently there are a total of nineteen states with the death penalty that do not allow the execution of juveniles. There are twelve states that to not allow the death penalty at all. Some of theses states included Alaska, Michigan, Vermont, and Maine. (Capital)

Some states have a minimum age requirement for capital punishment. There are fourteen states that sixteen is the minimum age. Mississippi and Arkansas are among theses states. Florida is one of the states where the age requirement is seventeen. Tennessee along with eighteen other states and two federal jurisdictions has the minimum age requirement of eighteen.

Tennessee is one of the states that allow the death penalty. Since 1976 there has only been one execution in Tennessee. However, prior to 1976 there were 335 executions. Currently of the 3374 people of death row 106 of them are in Tennessee with two of them being female. In Tennessee prisoners are given the option of serving life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty and execution.

There are various methods of execution here in the United State of America. A prisoner can be executed by lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad, and hanging. Of theses methods lethal injection is the most used, preferred, easiest way of execution. Hanging is rarely used. Prisoners in Tennessee are mostly executed by lethal injections, and executions. As of March 16, 2005, there had already been twelve prisoners executed in the United States. All of these prisoners were males and executed by lethal injection.

There are many people who are against capital punishment. People say that the death penalty is