The Issue of Capital Punishment (Essay Sample)

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Summary
Capital Punishment
The use of capital punishment is a source of controversy in the entire world. Capital punishment refers to the punitive termination of human life befitted for offenses that are considered as extreme. This practice is carried out in many nations around the world with most of the countries in support executing the criminal elements through an array of methods. The proponents of this activity suggest that capital punishment assists to de-clutter prisons and to deter would-be criminals from attempting the same. However, the opponents of the practice argue several critical points such as the inhumane act of killing itself as well as the overall costliness of the entire procedure. Capital punishment is a costly and evidently inconsequential activity which fails to deter would-be criminals and disrespects the very precepts of punitive measures.
The death penalty is a valueless measure because it fails to deter criminal activity in its related legal classification. The proponents of capital punishment suggest that it effectively reduces capital offenses regardless of the apparent minimal research on the same (Braswell et al. 210). They propose that capital offense prosecutions are insignificant as compared to other crimes cumulatively. They, therefore, affirm that the minimalism of capital offenses prosecutions is evidence of the effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring such crimes. However, this argument fails to consider that a comparison between prosecutions of crimes fails to detail the numerical imbalance between capital offenses and other offenses. In most case scenarios, the number of capital offenses is still minimal when compared to the other criminal offenses. Therefore arguing that the reduced number is evidence of the effect of the death penalty is both wrong and unfounded. Further, if the death penalty were a proper deterrent, several qualitative pieces of research would be presented on the issue to affirm the same. Therefore, the effect of capital punishment in deterring similar crimes has been inconclusive negating its importance as a punitive measure.
Capital punishment is inhumane because it takes away life under the pretense of being a valid punitive measure. The practice of killing a person because of an offense violates several cultural and moral laws regardless of the crime in question. However, the proponents of capital punishment argue that the death penalty is the least possible punitive measure for a capital crime such as murder, rape and genocide. They say that once a person has taken another's life or defiled every impediment there is to moral authority, there is little to no incentive that can be applied to purge them of their crime except perhaps ending their lives. This argument, however, fails to note that killing is a defiance towards the same moral law as may have been committed by the criminal. Killing a person because they killed another is merely settling a score and is just as wrong as the initial crime. Further, the argument fails because there are several other formats of punishment such as life imprisonment or imprisonment with hard labor which would be better suited to punish the offender than the instantaneous death (Braswell et al. 210). Therefore, capital punishment is an inhumane act which demeans not only the offender but the moral, cultural and societal value of life.
The practice of capital punishment is often painful and torturous to the criminal and the family, a factor which makes the measure unnecessarily extensive. The quarters which argue for the death penalty often assert that the need for an affirmed message through the death of a capital offender supersedes whatever pain or anguish they or their family gets in the process. They argue that regardless of the severity of the method used, the punishment has to be carried out to project the seriousness of the crime to the public and help to deter any would be criminals (Rice, 5). They affirm therefore that whichever method is used, be it the lethal injection or the electric chair, the final message becomes more important to society. Further, they propose that it is less expensive to kill than it is to imprison for an extended term