Capital Punishment (Essay Sample)

Capital Punishment
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Capital punishment
In our society there are laws, and some people will tend to violate them, hence there should be a system of practices and government institutions to sanction and rehabilitate those who violate the laws, prevent and mitigate the unlawful acts and uphold the social control. All this is usually done by the criminal justice system. Some of the various crimes in our society include theft, rape, and murder Depending on the magnitude of the case, criminals are judged differently. Capital punishment also known as death penalty refers to punishment through death sentence. Crimes that result to such sentences are known as capital crimes. Capital crimes include drug trafficking, murder and terrorism. In ancient days it was practiced as punishment for political or religious rebels’ criminals. There are various methods of execution that are used in different parts of the world. The methods include shooting, beheading hanging electric chair and lethal injection. The punishments include putting people on probation, paying fines, imprisonment and capital punishment. Execution has been matter of active controversy several countries and states, and arguments vary within a cultural region or a single political ideology. Some are for it while other strongly opposes it.
Imposing capital punishments justifies the arguments that if convicted murderers are executed, those would-be murderers will fear killing people thus seen as a way of deterring them. Deterrence is effective when the suspect is punished as soon as possible as this will inflict fear to others. For instance, executions which are humiliating, painful, and public will make people fear by creating sense of horror. This will others from committing the same crime. Taking an analogy, children will learn to avoid putting fingers in fire because he understands that the pain is instant. Thus anybody committing this crime will be punished instantly. People will therefore therefor avoid committing crimes. Other supporters of this argue that it is of benefit even when it does not have deterrent effects. However, some argue that deterrence will not instil fear in the would- be murderers with support that no evidence confirms this.
It is seen as a way of rehabilitating convicts. Though, capital punishment does not rehabilitate the prisoner and bring him back to society, persons facing this may take opportunity before they are executed to confess and repent to express remorse. The prisoner often may experience some spiritual rehabilitation though it won’t help him anymore since he is being executed after that. Also according to Thomas Aquinas, accepting that punishment of death will make the offender expiate the evil deeds he committed and he will be able to avoid future punishment in the next life. From this, death penalty can impact rehabilitation.
Capital punishment is seen as an important tool to police. Police will offer reduced sentence to criminal in exchange for helping the police get information. The prisoner may get favor as his sentence reduced if he agrees to help the police get crucial information concerning crime. When the criminal is sentenced to death, he may get incentive if he cooperates with the police to help them arrest others and the death sentence reduced to life imprisonment.
Through capital punishment, re-offending can be prevented. Taking human life through capital punishment though not a justification in solving the case can be seen as a way of curbing the vice in the future. Other alternatives such as life imprisonment may not be effective since sometimes this prisoners can escape from jail and end up killing again as they get out of the facility. Life imprisonment without parole will protect the society out there adequately since the criminal will no longer have contact with the public again. However, the criminal remains to be dangerous to the fellow inmates and the prison staff. Therefore execution will be the only solution to eliminate the danger completely.
Another argument supporting capital punishment is the Japanese argument. Japanese psychologists argue that the keeping of the punishment is an important approach in the Japanese life. Japan executes an average of three persons in a year. The arguments of this goes that death penalty strengthens the belief good and bad things will happen to individuals responsible CITATION Arg14 \l 1033 (Arguments in favour of capital punishment, 2014). Therefore capital punishment existence in the country provides the hope that reward will be in due time. For long period of time, capital punishment has been supported by several countries all over the world. These countries have passed new laws to try and retain this punishments for special crimes. The following are some of the countries that support capital punishment;
China. The country carries out highest executions in the whole world. The country executes thousands of criminals each year, this is according to Amnesty International reports. United States is another country in which it executed 46 people in the year 2010. Most states currently conduct death penalty with states such as Texas and Virginia recording the highest number since 1976. Other countries include Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen Indonesia, Bangladesh and Iraq. CITATION 10C15 \l 1033 (10 Countries That Still Embrace Capital Punishment, 2015)
Capital punishment has triggered debates amongst religions. Different religions have their own view of the matter. Buddhism views this as being inconsistent with the teaching of Buddhist. Great emphasis is placed on compassion for every life. Christians support capital punishment though others are against this. Just like other people, they too make additional case basing on the faith. Pop Innocent II in his speech expressed the support for capital punishment. Islam as a whole supports capital punishment and this is evident in Qur’an 6:151. Muslims have a belief that this punishment is suitable for severe crimes. Islamic states who practice Sheria law use capital punishment for serious crimes. Hinduism has no official line on their stand on this. However, the religion does not support killing, revenge and violence according to principle of ahimsa. Judaism also don’t encourage capital punishment though the readings of the Old Testaments might be confused to the latter. Jewish courts impose death penalties rarely. This is an indication that they don’t encourage it.
Those who are against the death penalty have come up with several reasons that include the following; that carrying out a death sentence is much more expensive compared to other sentences such as life without the possibility of parole. This is because of the costly, extensive and complex judicial process for capital crimes, as required by the Constitution. This process is cannot be avoided so as to ensure that the innocent are not executed. They also argue that there are better alternatives such as life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole. The sentence is less expensive and deters the offenders in our society it also allows for mistakes to be corrected. Another argument is that there is no re...