StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Nobody downloaded yet

Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child - Dissertation Example

Cite this document
Summary
The dissertation "Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child" focuses on the critical analysis of why the United States continued to carry out the juvenile death penalty after the establishment of juvenile courts and other protections for child criminals…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER92.5% of users find it useful

Extract of sample "Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child"

Download file to see previous pages

At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States was considered a global leader in child protection, child welfare, and juvenile justice reform, and many states around the world modeled their penal reform efforts after those in the United States. Yet by the century’s end, the United States had lost international esteem and was the object of widespread criticism over its failure to protect children’s rights. A centerpiece of the international debate was the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the principal international treaty for children’s rights and one to which every state in the international system is a party except the United States and Somalia. Particular attention focused on the US violation of Article 37§a, which outlaws both life imprisonment and the death penalty for children who commit their crimes when they are under 18 years of age.
Ultimately, the penalty was found to be unconstitutional in a 5-4 decision by the United States Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons (543 US 551 [2005]), a ruling that brought the United States into greater compliance with international norms about children and criminal justice. Although a great deal of attention has focused on the reasons the United States abolished the juvenile death penalty in the Roper decision, the continuation of the penalty throughout the 20th century is a puzzle given the clear conflict between the penalty and other norms about children that had already been internalized by the United States. Throughout most of the century, children in the United States were widely thought to be less culpable for their actions than adults; their decision-making abilities were believed to be compromised; and their crimes were thought to be a product of their environment. In many important ways, children were distinguished from adults in terms of access to vice (such as alcohol and cigarettes), military service, voting, and other markers of adulthood. Nonetheless, when children committed capital crimes in certain jurisdictions, they were made eligible for adult penalties, including the death penalty. Why did the United States continue a policy that was out of step not only with international opinion but also with other norms about children already internalized by the United States? What was distinct about these child criminals that excluded them from a steadily expanding set of protections for children? This research argues that the United States continued to execute juvenile offenders throughout the 20th century because of a unique combination of factors: the specific politics of American federalism, which limited centralized control over individual US states in terms of penalties for crimes within state jurisdiction, combined with a legacy of racial prejudice. The result was a penalty that was largely reserved for African-American juveniles convicted of violent crimes in the South. This research will begin with a summary of the interaction between the United States and the international children’s rights regime at the end of the 20th century. As the research will show, this relationship was a troubled one, marked by the consistent and escalating rebuke of the United States by the international community regarding the lack of recognition of and protection for children’s rights. The research will then briefly discuss the evolution of juvenile penal reform and rehabilitation in the United States in the 20th century.

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 11250 words, n.d.)
Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 11250 words. https://studentshare.org/education/2109536-capital-punishment-practices-on-race-rights-and-american-child
(Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 11250 Words)
Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 11250 Words. https://studentshare.org/education/2109536-capital-punishment-practices-on-race-rights-and-american-child.
“Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 11250 Words”. https://studentshare.org/education/2109536-capital-punishment-practices-on-race-rights-and-american-child.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Capital Punishment Practices on Race, Rights and American Child

Capital Punishment

capital punishment refers to the fact where a convict is prosecuted through putting an end to his/her life.... In ancient and medieval ages crushing by elephants was considered to be one of the most practiced forms of capital punishment.... eval times that even sometimes stretched itself in modern times some were boiling the victim to death, the infamous Mongolian breaking back, catherine or breaking wheel, buried in ground while still alive, burning alive, crucifixion, crushing, decapitation, disembowelment, throwing down from a height, impalement and many other forms of capital punishment were practiced to deliver death to the concerned convict (10 Unusual methods of capital punishment, n....
15 Pages (3750 words) Research Paper

The Causes of Crime with Special Emphasis on Social and Psychological Factors

This report presents an overview of the causes of crime with special emphasis on social and psychological factors which lead to criminal tendencies.... Further the report discusses the magnitude of crime, patterns, as well as how different crimes are manifested.... ... ... ... The effects of crime are also described although not in depth....
16 Pages (4000 words) Essay

Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty

Also known as capital punishment, the act is normally done by a government against a person who has legally been convicted through a legal or judicial process.... In fact, it may well be said that the application of execution extends to prehistoric times as communal punishment for certain offenses included corporal punishment, banishment, shunning and.... This paper discusses the subject of death penalty and will mainly focus on the pros and cons of employing the mode of punishment according to different viewers and commentators....
15 Pages (3750 words) Research Paper

Capital Punishment in The UK

There is described capital punishment in the UK in this research paper.... This paper outlines the history of capital punishment in the UK, the evolution of major regulations on its abolishment, ethical aspects of this issue, and arguments against and for its reintroduction.... Today abolition of capital punishment is a criterion for any country to join the European Union.... capital punishment in the UK has a history dating back to several centuries....
6 Pages (1500 words) Research Paper

Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Death Penalty Cases: Furman v. Georgia

This disparity in the application of the death penalty based on race and geography renders it unconstitutional in the United States.... GEORGIA (1972) Constitutional Law for Criminal JusticeName Institution Date AbstractState legislation or congress describes capital punishment for capital crimes such as murder.... It is also commonly referred to as capital punishment.... The case led to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment....
2 Pages (500 words) Research Paper

Arguments Against Capital Punishment

This essay "Arguments Against capital punishment" claims that capital punishment proves ineffective as an instrument of deterring violent crime on political, ethical, and theological grounds.... Having backed the claim for the ineffectiveness of capital punishment in preventing crime using statistics, an important disclaimer needs to be added – 'Statistics is not everything'.... In other words, even if capital punishment is helpful as a deterrent to violent crime, it cannot justify the execution of a few innocent victims alongside the guilty ones....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Capital Punishment Practice Across the Nations

The paper seeks to make a probe into the various aspects of capital punishment and it emphasizes that capital punishment should be abolished in the United States as it does not deter other criminals, as there is the increased risk of innocents being executed.... The death penalty has been an issue of controversy and debate for ages and one comes across a large number of arguments for and against capital punishment system.... On the other hand, the major argument against the death penalty is that it is against human rights, ethics, and morality....
17 Pages (4250 words) Research Paper

Race and the Death Penalty

The debate surrounding the necessity of punishments including capital punishment, therefore, does not focus on the 'basic principles but on the fairness, appropriateness, and effectiveness of specific punishments for specific offenses.... For example, a child who breaks the rules of a family at home is punished by his parents or the other elderly members.... efore studying the death penalty from the angle of racial prejudices it is important to note that racism is a major part of the american society....
15 Pages (3750 words) Research Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us