Capital punishment is the practice of executing someone as punishment for a specific crime after a proper legal trial. It can only be used by a state, so when non-state organisations speak of having executed’ a person they have actually committed a murder. It is usually only used as a punishment for particularly serious types of murder, but in some countries treason, types of fraud, adultery and rape are capital crimes. Capital punishment is used in many countries around the world. Around 100 countries still had the death penalty in their legal systems in 2005, although 24 of these never actually use it.
China executes the most people per year overall. I do not support capital punishment because it is against humanity, human rights and forgiveness. Human life is so valuable that even the worst murderers should not be deprived of the value of their lives. It is the cause of family hardships and suffering. It is not a proper way to re correct a mistake. This assignment paper explores why people should stop using capital punishment. Capital punishment is a revenge rather than retribution and as such is a morally dubtful concept.
The regretion and suffering of the criminal, who may be kept on death row for many years, makes the punishment more severe than just loosing the criminal’s life. Also some people tend to think that by executing the capital punishment other people will take it as a good lesson for his or her life and they will prevent from doing serious crimes. But the statistical evidence doesn’t confirm that deterrence works (but it doesn’t show that deterrence doesn’t work either). Also some of those executed may not have been capable of being deterred because of mental illness or defect.
Some capital crimes are committed in such an emotional state that the criminal did not think about the possible consequences. Everyone has an inalienable human right to life, even those who commit murder, executing a person to death and executing them violates that right. The most common and most powerful argument against capital punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or holes in the justice system. The lawers and jurors can make mistakes in the process of executing the capital punishment.
When these mistakes are coupled with flaws in the law system in a particular country it is inevitable that innocent people will be convicted of crimes. Where capital punishment is used such mistakes cannot be put right. We can take a recent example ,execution of Rizana Nafeek,who was a srilankan woman convicted and subsequently executed in Saudi Arabia for the murder of four-month-old infant. Another ample evidence that such mistakes are possible, in the USA, 116 people sentenced to death have been found innocent since 1973 and released from death row.
It’s generally accepted that people should not be punished for their actions unless they have a guilty mind – which requires them to know what they are doing and that it’s wrong. Regardless of the moral status of capital punishment, some argue that all ways of executing criminals cause so much suffering than the victim has experienced. Many methods of execution are quite obviously likely to cause pathetic fatal suffering, such as execution by lethal gas, electrocution or strangulation.
Laws like Sharia which take place in middle east countries execute capital punishment in numerous unbearable ways. So I think these methods suffer criminal than the victim and it is unfair to kill them in such a fearful ways. Capital punishments cause family hardships and suffering. People who provide basic needs for their families can commit crimes that may call for the use of capital punishment. Such people provide almost everything for their families. This becomes complicated when persons involves have children and take care of them as single parents.
In case these people commit crimes punishable through capital punishment, they leave their dependants in compromising situations. For instance, when a single mother who has children below the age of ten commits crime and becomes convicted then sentenced to death, the children she will leave behind will suffer in several ways. First, they will lack a person to provide for their basic needs, such as food, clothing and housing. Secondly, they will lack a mother figure in their lives that can take care of their psychological, emotional and comfort needs. These children will remain suffering.
Also take the Rizana case, her parents and brothers depend on Rizana and now what kind of situation to face them and her parents suffering every minit of the day what happed to my daughter. Also Capital punishment does not respect human rights. Human rights require that people own a right to life even when they have committed crimes of whatever level. Capital punishment has a single way of handling all people pertained to have committed a crime worth that kind of punishment. On utilitarianism, punishment is justified only insofar as it promotes the general happiness.
So I suggest that without killing the criminal we can give him a punishment according to the weight of criminal’s crimes and also it’s very essential to change their attitudes towards their own life and society. It is essential to conduct rehabilitation programs in the prisons and give them a chance to mix with the society as a new valued person that respects to the human rights and society. The idea that we must be punished for any act of wrongdoing, whatever its nature, relies upon a belief in human free will and a person’s ability to be responsible for their own actions.
If one does not believe in free will, the question of whether it is moral to carry out any kind of punishment arises. Also some great religions like Buddhisum never aceept capital punishment. We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice. So capital punishment is not the soloution for major crimes in the society. Instead we should find the reasons for such crimes and give solutions for that reasons. Then eventually our society will become more peaceful place to live happily without any kind of crimes.
