The Capital Punishment issue has been an incredible instigator of disagreements between all people within the United States. Many people try to reconcile religion and the justice system. While in an ideal society this would be possible, it just isn't within the United States due to the freedom of religion. Thus it is more logical to approach the issue from a statistical standpoint. The United States has an excellent history of supporting scientific study and statistical analysis. There are several key issues that disagreements and the most heated arguments spring off of.

The first issue that most arguments begin with is the thought that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime more effectively than other punishments. That thought has been widely disproved statistically through scientific study. There is, however, one study that suggests that capital punishment is a deterrent, the Ehlrich studies. These have been widely...