Capital punishment

Capital punishment is the legal killing of a person for a crime they have been proved in a court of law to have committed. In the US the death penalty is used in 38 states. In 1972 the Supreme Court decided that it was 'cruel and unusual punishment', which the Constitution does not allow, and it became illegal until 1977, when the Court changed its mind.

Each state decides what methods of execution (= killing) will be used. These include hanging, a firing squad (= a group of soldiers who shoot the prisoner), the gas chamber (= a room that is filled with poisonous gas), the electric chair (= a chair which sends a strong elec­tric current through the prisoner's body), and a lethal injection (= an injection of a poisonous chemical).

In the US the death penalty is passed on people found guilty of murder. Although there are about 24 000 murders each year, since 1977 only 5000 people have been given the death penalty, and under 400 have been executed. Most people who receive the death sentence appeal to higher courts, and the sentence may be changed. The legal system moves slowly, so that a long time passes between the sen­tence being given and the execution taking place. The result is that there are over 3 000 prisoners on death row, i.e. waiting to be executed. The state governor can give a stay of execution (= a delay so that the prisoner has time to appeal to another court) or a pardon. This can happen at any time until the exe­cution takes place.

Another reason why so few death sentences are carried out is that there is strong opposition to capital punishment. People argue that it is immoral, and that if a mistake is made it cannot be put right. They also say that the death penalty does not pre­vent people from committing murder. Another strong argument is that more African Americans are sentenced to death than other racial groups and this is unfair.

In Britain the death penalty for murder was abol­ished in 1965, but it can still be passed on anyone found guilty of treason (= crimes against the state). Many British people think that the death penalty should be brought back for crimes such as terrorism (= the use of violence for political aims) or the murder of a police officer, but Parliament has voted several times against this. In former times about 200 crimes were capital offences, punishable by hanging. The wooden gallows or gibbet on which crim­inals were hanged can still be seen in some places. Many criminals were hanged in public at Tyburn in London, and later at Newgate prison. Traitors were hanged, drawn and quartered, i.e. hanged on the gallows, then taken down whilst still alive and their intestines cut out. Their heads were cut off and their bodies cut into four pieces.

Prisons

Britain's system of justice relies heavily on impris­onment as a form of punishment. Until the late 18th century conditions in prisons such as Newgate were dirty and violent. In the 19th century condi­tions improved, thanks to the work of reformers like Elizabeth Fry. New prisons were built, in which most prisoners had their own cell facing into a large central area. Many of these prisons, such as Pentonville and Strangeways are still used today.

The type of prison in which criminals serve their sentence depends on their category. Category A prisoners are considered dangerous and are held in high-security closed prisons, such as Wormwood Scrubs. Prisoners may be kept in solitary confine­ment if they are likely to harm others. Category В and С prisoners are also held in closed prisons. Cat­egory D prisoners are trusted not to escape and are sent to low-security open prisons. Prisoners on re­mand (= waiting for their trial) are held in remand centres, but problems of overcrowding have result­ed in many of them being kept in prisons or police stations. Young people aged 15 - 20 are normally sent to young offender institutions, sometimes called detention centres or youth custody centres. These have replaced the old Borstals. However, if space is not available, young people are sometimes sent to adult prisons. A prison is run by a governor who is responsible to the Home Office, and the prisoners are guarded by warders.

There is not enough space available in prisons for the number of people being given custodial sen­tences. Cells intended for one person now contain two or three. In the 1990s there were riots at several prisons because of poor living conditions. Despite this, some people think life in Britain's prisons is not hard enough. Some prisons are described as 'universities of crime', where prisoners gain new skills in breaking the law and have access to drugs.

In the US the federal and state governments have prisons, sometimes called penitentiaries or cor­rectional facilities. Counties and cities have jails. There are 92 federal prisons classified as minimum, low, medium or high security. There are about 100,000 inmates (= prisoners), and all who can must work. People are sent to a prison if their sentence is for several years. If the sentence is a year or less they are sent to jail. Some prisoners on work release are allowed to leave jail during the day to go to a job. Prisoners often spend the last few months of their sentence in a halfway house where they are helped to prepare for life outside prison.

There are more than 1.5 million people in US prisons and jails, about twice as many as ten years ago. The increased use of drugs may be partly responsible for this. Other problems include over­crowding, and the fact that the racial mix of people in prison does not reflect the population. Over 40% of prisoners are black, compared with 12% of the general population. Many people see this as evi­dence that African Americans are treated unfairly by the justice system and arc more likely than white Americans to be sent to prison.

In the US people who are awaiting trial often do not go to prison but instead make bail (= pay money to the court) as a guarantee that they will return for the trial. People sent to prison as punishment rarely serve their full sentence but after some time are released on parole, which means they must report regularly to a government official. It is possible that two people who have committed the same crime may receive different punishments. To stop this happening some states have introduced mandatory sentencing, which means that the punishment for a crime is fixed by law.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14