Policy Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Policy Speech - Essay Example The CBS report, which drives home to us the inhumanity of capital punishment, demonstrates the urgent need to create and implement a comprehensive policy which will ban the Death Penalty throughout the United States. My passionate conviction that all forms of life merit humane treatment, has made me do an in-depth study on all the facets of the Death Penalty and confirmed my belief that Capital Punishment has no place in a civilized society. There is an urgent need for the crafting and implementation of a ‘Comprehensive Abolition of The Death Penalty Act,’ which will make the Death Penalty illegal throughout the United States. I am confident that my presentation will convince you of the rightness of my stand on this issue. My argument will focus on countering the mistaken perception of two-thirds of the U.S. population who support the Death Penalty (according to the 2009 October Gallup Poll). This majority wrongly believes that the Death Penalty (1) serves as a deterrent to crime (2) is more cost-effective than other forms of punishment (3) employs humane methods of execution. The most prevalent myth about the apparent efficacy of the Death Penalty is that it serves as a deterrent to crime. On the contrary, in a study by Radelet and Lacock, in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the results from a survey of the world’s leading criminologists has conclusively proved through empirical research that the death penalty does not add deterrent effects to those already achieved by long imprisonment. Executions do not lower homicide rates. An overwhelming majority of 88% of the surveyed criminologists rejected the deterrence argument in favor of the Death Penalty. Many adherents of the Death Penalty mistakenly assume that it is cheaper than alternative forms of punishment. In fact, the enforcement of the Death Penalty imposes prohibitive costs on the State exchequer. According to the Final Report of the Death