Essay on Capital Punishment - An Appropriate Form of...

Since the early settlers first stepped foot on what is now the United States of America, capital punishment has been reserved as a form of punishment for the people who have committed some of society’s most heinous crimes. Recently, support of capital punishment has begun to erode due to the advancements of DNA technology and groups, such as the Innocence Project. Capital punishment, however, remains to be an appropriate form of punishment for someone convicted of capital crimes, and may be effective in deterring such offenses. In December, 1607, Captain George Kendall was the first known person to be executed in the territory, now known as the United States of America. Captain Kendall was shot by firing squad, accused of spying†¦show more content†¦According to the Innocence Project, there have been 173 exonerations due to eyewitness misidentification, 116 cases due to improper forensics, 51 cases due to false admissions, and 36 cases of unreliable informants. In addition, 17 people have been exonerated through DNA testing. Opponents note, that these people have spent a combined 187 years on death row for a crime they did not commit (2010). It is their stance that executions should be halted or at the very least, be sure that persons awaiting execution are allowed to prove their innocence. Although opponents of capital punishment have a valid point, these are just a small number of isolated cases, when compared to the number of inmates currently awaiting execution throughout the United States. Although it is true that the murder rate is higher in states that allow capital punishment, it is simply because there are more states that allow it, moreover, the population of these â€Å"death penalty† states exceeds the population of â€Å"non-death penalty states (2009). It is not difficult to imagine that the larger the population is, the greater probability exists for crimes to occur, including murder. Capital punishment may also p rove to be beneficial in deterring capital crimes, however, skeptics rebut this claim. Beginning in 1963, the United States Supreme Court imposed rules dealing with searches and confessions. During that time, the nation’sShow MoreRelatedCapital Punishment1534 Words   |  7 PagesThe death penalty has been around for many centuries and will probably be around for many to come. Although some citizens feel capital punishment is ethically wrong, it is necessary in today s society for various reasons. Society must be kept safe from the barbaric acts of murders and rapist, by taking away their lives to function and perform in our society. Most criminals don t take into account the results of their actions. If a person intending to commit a crime, sees another criminal put toRead MoreThe Death Penalty: An Appropriate Punishment Essay examples1517 Words   |  7 PagesCapital punishment has been a punitive consequence of multiple societies in many different countries over the years. The death penalty has been witnessed in many different forms, depending on the society or culture. It is viewed as an act of justice due to its deeply embedded historical tradition. Over the centuries, many cultures have used capital punishment because it ensures the safety of society. Criminals continue to use violence as their way of solving a problem. Capital punishment deters crimeRead MoreDeterrence Is The Primary Source When Defining Criminal Law1549 Words   |  7 Pagescriminal law. According to dictionary.com deterrence â€Å"is a law that was passed that includes the breakdown of punishments and uses then as fear tactics; to disappoint individual criminal defendants from becoming reappearance offenders and to discourage others in society from engaging in similar criminal activity.’ (Dictionary 1). Deterrence work in two ways; large population and the punishment of wrongdoers. Deterrence is aimed at the individual; once the law has been violated, and the significanceRead MoreAristotle And Confucius Maintained An Ethical Position On Capital Punishment967 Words   |  4 PagesConfucius maintained an ethical position concerning capital punishment. While we can safely assume Aristotle believed capital punishment is appropriate under certain circumstances, Confucius generally argued against the death penalty. Nevertheless, both ethical viewpoints find some common ground where capital punishment can be justified. Aristotle s theory of justice offers an outline for a system of justice, of which the death penalty for appropriate crimes is acceptable. His underlying assumptionRead MoreThe Case For Death Penalty1252 Words   |  6 Pagessomebody else’s life is simply immoral.† When considering the issue of capital punishment, many arguments are made in favor of proponents and abolitionists. There are utilitarian arguments, retributive arguments, and egalitarian arguments. Utilitarian arguments argue against the death penalty, for they look to punish criminals for the benefit and the â€Å"lesson learned† from the punishment. They believe that this is the most effective form of deterrence, because the criminal will learn their lesson and theRead MoreArgument Against The Death Penalty1247 Words   |  5 Pagessomebody else’s life is simply immoral.† When considering the issue of capital punishment, many arguments are made in favor of proponents and abolitionists. There are utilitarian arguments, retributive arguments, and egalitarian arguments. Utilitarian arguments argue against the death penalty, for they look to punish criminals for the benefit and the â€Å"lesson learned† from the punishment. They believe that this is the most effective form of deterrence, because the criminal will learn their lesson and theRead More Capital Punishment Essay1685 Words   |  7 PagesCapital Punishment Works Cited Not Included Capital Punishment was basically thought of for the good of society. The objective of Capital Punishment is to stop people from committing violent and offensive acts. Capital Punishment or the death penalty has failed however, to prevent or discourage crime. Moreover, it is cruel and gruesome. At present there are five methods of execution. The most commonly used form of execution is by lethal injection. In this method the convict is first injectedRead MoreShould It Be Abolished Or Not?1396 Words   |  6 PagesWilliam Furman guilty of all charges and is to be sentenced to capital punishment. However, what is capital punishment? The definition from dictionary.com states: The practice or legal sanction of allowing the imposition of the penalty of death for people convicted of committing certain crimes. There are five lawful means of sentencing which are electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, gas chamber, and firing squad. Capital punishment is a delicate topic amongst the people but there are certain aspectsRead MoreCapital Punishment And Its Social Implications1463 Words   |  6 Pages The Use of Capital Punishment to Serve Justice, and its Social Implications Chloe E. Stone, Slippery Rock University Abstract This paper will provide the reader with a firm understanding of the capital punishment, and its application in the justice system. Additionally, it will explain how capital punishment in the fields of criminal justice and criminology impacts society, and those who surround these fields. Multiple publications that examine capital punishment will be analyzedRead MoreThe Debate over Capital Punishment Essay1025 Words   |  5 PagesThe Debate over Capital Punishment South Carolina, January 15, 1993. After wounding an Orangeburg, S.C. police officer with a misfired bullet, Thomas Treshawn Ivey, an Alabama prison escapee, proceeded to fired five more shots into the police officer from a handgun at close range after the wounded police office had reached for his gun. Ivey fled the scene but was quickly apprehended. This scenario is not to different from the horrible acts of violence that lead an offender to death row where

Literary Criticism of Atonement from Psychological Trauma View Free Essays

In seventeen century, â€Å"† was a Greek word which means â€Å"wound†. Later, Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used it to describe a kind of mental damage that occurs as a result of distressing and disturbing events or experiences. When a person is facing such highly stressful events analyzing and coping with it is not an easy process. We will write a custom essay sample on Literary Criticism of Atonement from Psychological Trauma View or any similar topic only for you Order Now In this paper we consider the topic of psychological trauma in Atonement by Ian McEwan, defining first of all the concept and then studying its processes of formation and effects on the main character, Briony Tallis. According to Pearlman and Saakvitne, psychological trauma is an event which is a special experience of a person that needs to be confronted. As a matter of fact, â€Å"The individual’s ability to integrate his/her emotional experience is overwhelmed, or the individual’s experiences (subjectively) a threat to life, bodily integrity, or sanity† (p.60). Also, Jon Allen, a psychologist, in his A Guide to Self-Understanding (1995) said that: â€Å"It is the subjective experience of the objective events that constitutes the trauma†¦The more you believe you are endangered, the more traumatized you will be. [†¦] Psychologically, the bottom line of trauma is overwhelming emotion and a feeling of utter helplessness. There may or may not be bodily injury, but psychological trauma is coupled with physiological upheaval that plays a leading role in the long-range effects† (p.14). Psychologists categorized trauma into two groups: physical trauma based on serious physical damages or shocks to the body from war, physical injury, sexual abuse, illness, torture, rape, and genocide; emotional or psychological trauma is based on the inability to recover the full mental capacities of an individual, either in his personal or social life or any emotional shock or injury that cause a sentimental damage to spirit health. It can range from depression, anxiety, different kinds of phobias to post traumatic stress disorder. Therefore, trauma is among those things that happen in everyday life which a person can experience by itself or witness of serious injuries, violence even death, putting the individual into a terrible situation followed by fear, helplessness or horror. In fact, trauma is not the event itself but the effect that has on the person like, Brioney’s belief about the event that happen in fountain. Atonement is a metafiction novel written by Ian Russell McEwan in 2001. Its events occurred in three different periods of time: firstly, in 1935 in England at Tallis family’s building, secondly during World War II in England and France, thirdly nowadays in England. The story tells about a huge mistake that an upper-class girl committed as a teenager that led to destroy lives. This thirteen years’ girl had a big imagination as a young writer. As an adult she always wanted to confess that event but this process did not happen until she completed her novel as an aged author, at last, in England. That mistake influenced on her life and also her style of writing until her novel ended with a kind of imaginary situation that gave her a chance to make up for her mistake. Ian McEwan was born in 1948 in England. His father was an alcohol addict and had spousal abuse toward his mother and the most interesting things about his life, is that Ian’s mother suffered from vascular dementia, the same disease that Brioney Tallis – the heroine of Atonement – also suffered from. To start with the novel â€Å"Atonement†, events began with a kind of misunderstanding that occurred for Brioney. Her sister, Cecilia, came to fountain while Robbie, their servant’s boy, was watching her almost bare body. Her sister looks ashamed and wear her clothes in front of him. Brioney was in her puberty age and didn’t know about sexual relationship as well, so she thought that if he is watching Cecilia in that situation, there must be something wrong about his behavior. She could not cope with this event and her mind was busy with it during that day. On the other hand, somewhere Brioney was telling her memory about his love experience to her friend. We could realize that she loved Robbie as a child while she did not know about sexual relationship and her love was pure. She threw herself into a deep river to see Robbie’s reaction and measure his feeling toward herself. It is almost clear that she was jealous of Cecilia and when she understands that Robbie tends to her sister, this makes her idea stronger about Robbie and his sexual problem. Brioney was under a pressure of event in the fountain which another event happened. Robbie gives Brioney a letter to render her sister which was containing sexual words about Cecilia’s body. She reads that letter without permission before give it to her sister and it causes to be sure about her belief. She could not cope with it and talks about it with her cousin, Lola, they found Robbie as a sex maniac and decides to protect Cecilia against him. At night, Brioney saw Cecilia and Robbie in the library in the middle of their sexual affair that made a great shock for her. She thought that they committed a huge mistake that she never could realize it so her behavior against Robbie changed, became aggressive, and started to hate him. During dinner the family realized that the twin cousins are gone so all of them went to the woods to find them. In the woods, Brioney saw a rape against Lola under a flashlight in her hands. For the second time she experienced a huge shock in one night and these stressful and disturbing chain of events made her nervous and caused that she connected all of her experiences with each other without thinking and saw Robbie as a sex offender. It was obvious that Brioney did not experience a rape and were just a witness but this subject caused a great fear and shock for a teenager in her age of puberty so she could not have recognized and distinguished true situations. This psychological trauma was a reason which she could not able to think carefully about what she saw and her mind automatically omitted a part of her observation. She professed that Robbie was the person who act that rape and caused his detection. By continuing the novel, it become clear that as Brioney grows up, her mind is busy about past events and doubt her witness. She becomes a nurse during the war to reduces her sense of sin and when suddenly see a news about the engagement between Lola and Paul Marshal, who came to their house with her brother in the year that those events happened, her mind becomes active and she tries to remember the exact things which occurred those days. At last, after passing about five years from her fearful experience, she could recall her memories in peaceful situation and remembers the face of person who act rape, it was Paul Marshal. She wants to make up her mistake and withdraw her testimony but it was too late for Robbie and Cecilia because both died in the war so she uses her talent in writing a novel as a means of confessing. Brioney experienced a psychological trauma during her young ages of her life that made an irreparable mental damages for her whole life. Therefore by seeing the effects of psychological trauma in the all aspect of main character’s life, can be concluded that trauma can puts serious effects on individual’s mental and physical health that accompanies an individual for his/her entire life.Citation:McEwan, Ian. Atonement. Random House, 2005.Ellam, Julie. Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009.Pitt, Daniela. The representation of trauma in Ian McEwan’s novels† Atonement† and† Saturday†. Diss. 2010.†What Is Psychological Trauma?† Sidran.org, www.sidran.org/resources/for-survivors-and-loved-ones/what-is-psychological-trauma/. â€Å"what is trauma?† https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/11559_Chapter_1.pdf†Emotional and Psychological Trauma.† Emotional and Psychological Trauma: Healing from Trauma and Moving On, www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/coping-with-emotional-and-psychological-trauma.htm. How to cite Literary Criticism of Atonement from Psychological Trauma View, Papers

A College Essay free essay sample

Sometimes I view myself as a neurotic person. Negative thoughts build up in my head as the anxiety grows and I find myself shaking. Most people would not regard this as beneficial; however, during these stressful times I have generated most of my creative works. I find it helpful to have â€Å"the fire lit under me† as it forces me to sharpen my mind by focusing all of my energy on one issue while all the fuzziness and static that is the rest of the world fades around me. A defining moment throughout my experience as a percussionist was the opening night of my high school’s musical revue, Remember 11. Just three days before opening night, my band director volunteered my services. Although the pit had a pianist, the theater director also wanted a drummer. Previously, the most music I ever had to learn were two or three jazz pieces over several months’ time. We will write a custom essay sample on A College Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This time, however, included learning over an hour of unfamiliar music in just three run-throughs. Not only was I understandably nervous about learning so much in so little time, but also I was completely out of my element in musical theater. Even though I consider myself an eclectic musician, (my repertoire includes playing Sousa marches on a snare drum, playing along with the Beatles, rocking with van Halen, jamming to Frank Zappa tunes, and switching from Rush, Slayer, and Parliament Funkadelic to Neil Young songs) musicals were something I had never viewed as â€Å"real† music. Yet, there I was, ready to meet the challenge! And meet the challenge I did. I soon discovered that musical theater also was to be respected for its level of difficulty. I had to learn how to take cues from the stage and when to shift to different sections. I was used to keeping time myself or to a conductor, but now tempo was decided by the many performers who varied night to night. Having no sheet music meant that I had to frantically write notes about how to play certain songs and how to meld those songs into each other since half of the show was a medley. I began to have some serious doubts about my abilities and my anxiety grew, and predictably so did my creativity. My performance on opening night was one of the most incredible moments of my life, not only surprising the audience but also astonishing me. As the minutes passed, I focused on the task in front of me, tuning out the distractions surrounding me. Gaining confidence, I really opened up and played straight from the heart, doing my best and enjoying every moment. At the end of the show, complete strangers made a point to congratulate me. â€Å"Was I really that good?† I asked myself. Those around me used words like â€Å"phenomenal†, â€Å"fantastic† and â€Å"outstanding†. The rush of the success of opening night did not fade with time. In the days and weeks that followed, I noticed that my self-confidence, both as a musician and as a person, was growing, and that the anxiety I once had was fading. My personal outlook was more often positive and even my grades were improving. My success was seeping into many aspects of my life and I was worrying less about unimportant things. Most importantly, while reflecting on these moments, I realized that being a percussionist and performer were not just extracurricular activities; they had become an integral part of my life and were now a future career goal. I had â€Å"the fire lit under me† and I am now ready to attain my dreams.