Monica Estrada
Corrections
Merkle
Spring 2017
Death Row
What would you think if you heard that the government could determine
your life or death? For thousands of men and women in the United States, the
government has determined that their lives were not equal to the lives of others
and they deserve to be sentenced to death. The death penalty is when a person
who has committed a crime is put to death by the state as their punishment. This
is due to the state determining their crime as capital punishment and therefore
placing them in a section of a prison with other inmates awaiting execution,
called death row. The laws on this form of punishment vary in each state and
have dated back centuries. The question, however, that many people are asking
is if death row and the death penalty could be considered a cruel and unusual
punishment.
Execution has been a form of punishment since the beginning of time. All
around the world for many different reasons from same-sex relationships,
infidelity, practicing religion, rape, incest, and even cursing the prophet.
Throughout the years as the criminal justice and judicial system has become
more developed in the United States, there have been many significant changes
to criminals facing punishment. Many states in the U.S. starting in the late 1800’s
began to abolish the death penalty due to the belief that it was a brutal
punishment (Death Penalty Information Center, 2017). However, the death
penalty is still existent in the U.S. despite many efforts made by the Abolitionist
Movement. Currently, there are still thirty-one states that practice the death
penalty and have inmates waiting on death row (Death Penalty Information
Center, Facts About the Death Penalty, 2017).
History has shown us that we have adopted many different forms of
execution punishment as technology has changed over time. Although execution
began as strictly hanging, many different forms of execution has established over
time. In 1890, the first execution by electric chair was performed and soon after
many other states adopted this method of execution (Death Penalty Information
Center, 2017). There were still very high rates of controversy over the methods
