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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Against Capital Punishment, Zac Bright, Ben Austin (Editor) Apr 2023

Against Capital Punishment, Zac Bright, Ben Austin (Editor)

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Capital punishment has a strong legal precedence in the United States. Capital punishment has been a penal option for those who commit conspicuously wrong acts. For such acts, the punishment seems to be proportional to the crime. In addition to the punishment’s adherence to proportionality, capital punishment mitigates problematic outcomes.

This paper advocates, however, that capital punishment should be classified as “cruel and unusual punishment.” Such violation of the eighth amendment delegitimizes capital punishment. Consequently, The Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 should no longer be considered a valid law because of its constitutional violation.


Keep Kids Out Of Prison: Community-Based Alternatives For Nonviolent Juvenile Offenders, Anessa L. Pennington May 2020

Keep Kids Out Of Prison: Community-Based Alternatives For Nonviolent Juvenile Offenders, Anessa L. Pennington

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Abstract

While juvenile crime has dropped over the past 20 years, tens of thousands of juvenile offenders are still incarcerated around the country, many of whom are nonviolent offenders. Researchers have found that detention centers, sometimes indistinguishable from adult prisons, do little to reduce recidivism and rehabilitate the offender. Rather, detention brings about more adverse effects than it does benefits. If incarceration isn’t working, how are the United States and other countries to deal with and deter juvenile crime? Community-based programs are a promising alternative to incarceration; instead of jumpsuits and cramped cells, community-based programs rely on community resources and …