Capital Punishment As of 1996, thirty-eight states have capital punishment statutes on the books, allowing prosecutors and juries to determine whether an individual is worthy of retaining their own life based on their actions. In 1996 there were 3169 people serving sentences on death row. The death penalty is not a deterrent. It is not meant as a deterrent.
Capital punishment is meant to remove individuals from society.
But just an increase in executions would not achieve a decrease in repeat offenders. Lethal injection, electrocution, and the gas chamber are not horrible deaths. Hanging, flogging and stoning are horrible deaths. Public executions, whether in a city square or on cable television, would aid the effort of capital punishment as a deterrent. Capital punishment can offer the citizens of the United States an economic way to empty the prisons and deter youth from entering a life of crime.