An Eye for an Eye in America The death penalty is a form of punishment in the United States that allows the state to execute violent criminals who have given up their right to live by committing murder or other acts that are unforgivable, such as child rape, or mass-murder. Many feel the death penalty is immoral in itself and executing criminals does not bring back those the criminal took from the victims’ families, nor does it bring closer. This may be true, it does not bring those victims back, but it does keep the animals off the streets and out of society for good. The death penalty is a good way to rid society of pedophiles, rapists, and murderers. Four philosophical and moral justifications for criminal punishment exist in common law; the death penalty complies with three out of the four. The four justifications of common law are: Retribution, Incapacitation, Rehabilitation, and Deterrence. The act of retribution is basically “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. This may seem barbaric and immoral but the fact remains, the society we live in generally believes that no bad deed should go unpunished. The death penalty fulfills retribution for murderers. Incapacitation is the theory of removing a criminal either by imprisonment or the death penalty will incapacitate them from committing additional crimes. This was demonstrated the best by when crime rates plummeted in New York City under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who believed that a small part of society tended who committed small crimes would move on to commit larger crimes if allowed back on the streets. The death penalty proves as a permanent incapacitation by removing the world’s most severe criminals from society forever. By definition deterrence has two key assumptions: the first is that punishments imposed on criminals will "deter" or prevent them from committing further crimes; the second is that