The Death Penalty is among one of the major punishments given by the United States Department of Justice. The following facts were given by the Office of Justice Program, Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the United States Department of Justice themselves. During the year of 1995, Texas was the leading state with nineteen executions. This is about thirty-four percent of the executions in the United States. Also in that year, out of 56 persons who were executed, there were 33 white, 22 black, and one Asian. The persons executed were under sentence of death an average of eleven years and two months. Thirty-four states and the Federal prison system held 3,054 prisoners under sentence of death. This is a little over five percent more than the previous year. These figures are high for the year, 1995. People consider this fair since all these prisoners have committed murder, but sometimes the US Department of Justice can not bring justice to either parties.
As of December 31, 1995, lethal injection was the predominant method of execution in the United States. Out of 50 states, 32 are using this type of execution. There were some states who are still using the other types of execution. Eleven states authorized electrocution, seven of lethal gas, four of hanging, and three states of firing squad. Among these, the least suffering is lethal injection.
The most recent execution in Texas took place on April 3, 1997. A man who killed a woman during the 1989 robbery of a topless bar was executed the day after he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt. David Lee Herman, 39, tried to take away his life by unsuccessfully slashing his throat and wrist with a broken razor. An officer …
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… someone, we are sending the most cynicism about the value of human life. Also every time we execute someone, we as a society sink to the same level as the common killer. Death is lifeís most powerful enemy. Therefore we are against killing people, and we cannot just take away a human being.
Works Cited
Dr. Gus Roberts. [email protected]. Dr. Gus Roberts. May 04, 1997 [email protected]. listserv email. May 04, 1997
Tracy L. Snell. Status of Death Penalty 1995. December 1996. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov.pub.bj.April 28, 1997
Michael L. Radelet and Ronald L. Akers. Deterrenc and the Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts. May 01, 1997. http://sun.soci.niu.edu…dppapers/mike.deterence. May, 03 1997.
Associated Press. Murderer Executed a Day After Suicide Attempt. Dallas Morning News. April 03, 1997.
P2P: The Future of Computing
Abstract: This paper discusses peer-to-peer file sharing and distributed computing.
In the mid-1980s, the term P2P, or peer-to-peer, was used by local area network vendors to describe the computing nodes on their networks. Previous to that, the term was used to describe ARPAnet, the military-backed computer network that would become the model for today’s Internet[1]. Today however, the term P2P has a very different meaning – it has come to describe applications designed specifically to exploit peer relationships between computers, using the Internet as an extension of the local network[2]. Its primary uses include not only the sharing of huge amounts of information, but also the sharing of free resources on a vast number of computers [3]. The reasons for its success are numerous and the problems that it creates are genuine.
Peer-to-peer networking has existed for years. The IP routing structure of the Internet is still peer-to-peer, albeit with several layers of hierarchy, and individual routers act as peers in finding the best route from one point on the net to another[4]. However, it is only recently, with the development applications that utilize P2P to create vast stores of media files, that it has become immensely popular. While these applications only account for a fraction of peer-to-peer networking’s uses, they have received the majority of the attention.
PEER-TO-PEER FILE-SHARING
These peer-to-peer file-sharing systems have changed the way we think about sharing data over the Net and their success can be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, these file-sharing systems have simple implementations that make them accessible to regular people. Not only is downloading a file using these systems simple, but uploading one is easy as well. Separate programs need not be used, and the process is often invisible to the user[5]. Further, because these systems are often used with media files such as MP3s, the same data exists on a number of different accessible computers. Because of this redundancy, accessing this data becomes reliable. In addition, because of the type of content that is being shared, a trust relationship is not required between the provider of the data and the person accessing it – there is little to no consequence to receiving a corrupted media file[6].
Perhaps the two most crucial elements of the success of such systems are that they allow an incredible number of files to be gathered through the amalgamation of the files on many computers, and that increasing the value of the databases by adding more files is a natural by-product of using the tools for one’s own benefit[7].