Core Competencies of Graduates

I learnt that...

Applied critique, an ability to critque contemporary problems systematically and constructively, using multiple stances methodically. Graduation means developing this competency to critiqe tomorrow's problems constructively.

The death penalty is not a proven deterrent to future murders.

Those who believe that deterrence justifies the execution of certain offenders bear the burden of proving that the death penalty is a deterrent. The overwhelming conclusion from years of deterrence studies is that the death penalty is, at best, no more of a deterrent than a sentence of life in prison. The Ehrlich studies have been widely discredited. In fact, some criminologists, such as William Bowers of Northeastern University, maintain that the death penalty has the opposite effect: that is, society is brutalized by the use of the death penalty, and this increases the likelihood of more murder. Even most supporters of the death penalty now place little or no weight on deterrence as a serious justification for its continued use.

States in the United States that do not employ the death penalty generally have lower murder rates than states that do. The same is true when the U.S. is compared to countries similar to it. The U.S., with the death penalty, has a higher murder rate than the countries of Europe or Canada, which do not use the death penalty.

The death penalty is not a deterrent because most people who commit murders either do not expect to be caught or do not carefully weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Frequently, murders are committed in moments of passion or anger, or by criminals who are substance abusers and acted impulsively. As someone who presided over many of Texas's executions, former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox has remarked, "It is my own experience that those executed in Texas were not deterred by the existence of the death penalty law. I think in most cases you'll find that the murder was committed under severe drug and alcohol abuse."

There is no conclusive proof that the death penalty acts as a better deterrent than the threat of life imprisonment. A survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies found that 84% of these experts rejected the notion that research had demonstrated any deterrent effect from the death penalty .

Once in prison, those serving life sentences often settle into a routine and are less of a threat to commit violence than other prisoners. Moreover, most states now have a sentence of life without parole. Prisoners who are given this sentence will never be released. Thus, the safety of society can be assured without using the death penalty.

The death penalty prevents future murders.

Society has always used punishment to discourage would-be criminals from unlawful action. Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder, and that is the death penalty. If murderers are sentenced to death and executed, potential murderers will think twice before killing for fear of losing their own life.

For years, criminologists analyzed murder rates to see if they fluctuated with the likelihood of convicted murderers being executed, but the results were inconclusive. Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies.

Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty.

Ernest van den Haag, a Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University who has studied the question of deterrence closely, wrote: "Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts. Whatever people fear most is likely to deter most. Hence, the threat of the death penalty may deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence. Perhaps they will not be deterred. But they would certainly not be deterred by anything else. We owe all the protection we can give to law enforcers exposed to special risks."

Finally, the death penalty certainly "deters" the murderer who is executed. Strictly speaking, this is a form of incapacitation, similar to the way a robber put in prison is prevented from robbing on the streets. Vicious murderers must be killed to prevent them from murdering again, either in prison, or in society if they should get out. Both as a deterrent and as a form of permanent incapacitation, the death penalty helps to prevent future crime.

All these arguments on death penalty showed us what death penalty truly is.
Argument: sth akin to legal argument or reasoned debate, not quarelling; its purpose is to validate knowledge claims. (Socrates) He used questioning form of argument to test their claim. It tests the quality of what we know.

Critque Questions
Argument
AR1. What do you see as the argument/ conclusion of the Author?
AR2. What was the Author's insight? (Was the argument novel, risky, open to falsification?)
AR3. What argument do you see?

Definitions
DF1. Are all keywords weel defined/described?

Audience
AU1. Who are the Authors?
AU2. Have they established their expertise?
AU3. Who is the intended audience?
AU4. Is the paper explicitly persuasive to this audience?

Evidence
EV1. What evidence can be brought to support the Authors?
EV2. Is this evidence convincing, novel or insightful?
EV3. Has the counter argument been fully considered?
EV4. Were there any observations that support the argument?

Problem
PR1. What was the problem the argument addressed?
PR2. Is it an important problem? For whom?
PR3. Does the passage solve a problem?

References:
http://www.teacher.deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/
Karl Popper, (1963) Conjectures and Refutations
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, (1969) The New Rhetoric
Walton, (1998) The New Dialetic
Toulmin, (1964) The Uses of Argument
Crosswhite, (1996) The Rhetoric of Reason
Eemeren at al., (1987) Handbook of Argumentation Theory