| Many posts hint and are partially about this, but I think it's about time to create a thread exclusively to the death penalty. I'll kick it off with a couple of things that I have posted in various other topics.
In the Clinton/Gore administration the amount of inmates doubled from 1 to 2 million.
In a 23 year period (1973-1995) a study found 7 out of 10 capital sentence cases out of 4,578 had serious, reversible error.
Since 1973 95 death row inmates were fully exonerated by the court. 96 have been realesed as a result of DNA testing.
In 85% of death penalty cases the error rates are 60% or higher
This is a direct quote from Social Work Speaks sixth edition Nation Association of Social Workers Policy Statements:
Abolition of the Death Penalty
There is no evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to violent crime. In fact the recent increase in homicides in the United States has occured despite the reinstitution of capital punishment in most states. The abolition of the death penalty would bring the United States' penal system in line with those of other modern industrialized societies. As it is currently used, the death penalty violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In addition, the equal application of the death penalty deprives many people of color and low-income people of the Fourteenth Amendment's gurantee of "equal protection under law."
End quote
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Shalom |