Capital Punishment (Essay Sample)

On Acceptability of Capital Punishment
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On Acceptability of Capital Punishment
Introduction
Capital punishment is also known as death penalty and it has raised several controversial issues in the society today. Many scholars have defined it as the infliction of death as a penalty on a criminal offender for violating criminal rules and laws set down by the government or state. Methods of capital punishment have in the past ranged from stoning, impaling and crucifixion in various societies to the present modern methods that comprises of electrocution, hanging, lethal gas and injection. Many countries all over the world have abolished death penalty as a way of punishing offenders while others have equally retained, and still practices it. The issue of capital punishment is generally a big debate in any society because there are those who support its usage and there are those who are of the contrary opinion.[Halim, Shaheen and Beverly L. Stiles. "Differential Support for Police Use of Force, theDeath Penalty, and Perceived Harshness of the Courts." Criminal Justice and Behavior 28 (2008):(1): 3-23.]
Acceptability of Capital Punishment
There is no state or government that has an absolute right to put its citizens who are criminal offenders to death. Even the human rights watch committee would be against such practices as they are a human right violation that is recognized internationally. However, even with this kind of argument among others, capital punishment is still practiced by most states for various reasons that are discussed below.
If citizens of a particular state decide to confer their voting rights through a referendum by putting certain classes of criminal offender through capital punishment then such a decision made in a democratic manner should be seriously considered and given attention by the policy makers, legislators and the judiciary.
Death penalty is acceptable because it can be used to incapacitate criminals who have committed serious offences. It will remove the worst criminals from the society for instance those who have committed murder, treason etc. the society will feel much safer when the criminal are dead because there will be no fear of them repeating the offences after release from prison or even when they are within prison.
Imprisonment of criminals like murderers for a very long time means more cost on the government and the tax payer as well. It is expensive keeping the prisoners in and that money could be spent on other government expenses if the criminals are executed.
It also acts as means of deterring other offenders. You will find that a country that carries out more capital punishment of death sentence has very few crimes and criminals to deal with. Criminals will in most cases think of the consequences that their crimes may lead them to and in such situations they will tend to avoid committing them in the long run. This has been proven because the rate of serious offences in countries that abolished capital punishment like Britain are higher compared to those that still practice death penalty.[...