Abstract
Death penalty or capital punishment is the way of dealing with the criminals involved in the assassinate cases in a legal manner resulting in punishment to death. The conditions of awarding capital punishment or sentence to death to the criminals vary from country to country. Several nations have marked the types of the punishments for various crimes committed by the offenders. There are number of pros and cons of death penalty, some of which are discussed in this paper. The absolute acceptance or rejection of the capital punishment has yet not been decided by the people or state. Some of the people recognize it as a barbaric and inhuman act and should not be implemented. They are also of the view that there are no beneficial effects of this cruel action rather depletion of money in terms of court procedures and wastage of time too. On the other hand, some other people do think that it should be implemented with true letter and spirit because it will be a pungent lesson learnt by the criminals wondering sovereignty. As per their view, keeping or holding the criminals behind the bars, who have committed the heinous crimes, for rest of the life instead of death penalty would be expensive and not an effective punishment.
Introduction
Death penalty is considered as a barbarous and sadistic punishment by many people. According to some, death penalty violates the moral values. On the other hand, some other people think that punishments are taken as a crucial tool and restriction in hostility planned violent murder. Capital punishment can be defined as “assassination of a human being by means of a legal process for revenge or incapacitation” . Death penalties are awarded to the person who commits the crimes termed as capital offences. Capital offences in the United States of America are generally known as to high-grade murders. The offences considered for death penalty from one state to another are different .
Keeping in view the moral consequences of this penalty, many countries have decided to drop down the punishment of death to the law breakers and others which are not considered as humiliating to human being. The death penalty is also termed as the capital punishment. During the decade of early 70’s, the death penalty was acknowledged by the law. During this period this act of punishment was confirmed as a barbarous, an unusual penalty by Supreme Court of Georgia. This method of death penalty has been disliked by huge number of masses in the world . Despite the pervasive resentment and dislike to this procedure of punishment, in few of the countries of the world, this process of punishment still is being practiced. For example, in America, this method is still being used in order to punish the people for committing capital crimes. But most of the countries have discontinued the death penalty due to its cruel, inhuman and barbaric nature. The states where this method of capital punishment has been dropped are North Dakota, Alaska, West Virginia, Rhode Island and Michigan among some others .
Pros
The death penalty or the capital punishment has been recommended by many of the nations in today’s era . Numerous pros of the capital punishment are recorded and are chiefly are described as under;
- When a criminal is imprisoned for life time or a longer period, he may be the sole responsibility of the state to be looked after for rest of the life. In this context, the imprisoning cost of a criminal, throughout the life, is significantly expensive as compared to the costs incurred on a person involved in the same crime but the punishment executed is other than the capital punishment. The capital punishment, therefore, is not considered as the cost-effective methodology in dealing with criminals .
- Most of the law makers and general population have different point of views regarding level of punishment to the crimes. There are many people who recommend a direct relationship between the crime and its punishment; means that the bigger the crime is, the severe should the punishment be. The Death penalty or the capital punishment is considered as the extreme form of a punishment, which is reserved generally for the giant and heinous crimes. The crime as of its nature should be fixed for the penalty; and in the extreme cases, the extreme nature of the penalties should be determined as a course of the justice .
- It has widely been argued and considered appropriate that the capital punishment lay down a frightening example and a lesson for the potential criminals not to act upon like them and also functions as a valuable deterrent. The set example will significantly prohibit the criminals from committing crimes because of instilling fear created in their minds .
- Death penalty ensures the security of other prisoner as the statistics reveal that most of the criminals who are capitally punished are brutal and unpredictable. In an impulsive situation, these criminals may cause danger to the other prisoners’ safety .
- Crimes like treason, kidnapping, rape, torture, larceny, murder, and perjury turn on an ethical code which escapes truth and expert proof it by evidence or otherwise. But the society would thrust into chaos if the community could not take action on the moral assumptions and remain unsure if the sun rises from the east and sets in west. Abolitionists may challenge that the penalty of death is immoral inherently as the governments must not take the human life, regardless of the nature of provocation. The penalty of death honors the human dignity by considering the plaintiff as free ethical actor capable to manage his own providence for ill or for good; the human being must not be considered as the animal without moral sense .
- Among others, one of the significant and tremendous pros of capital punishment is that it keeps the opportunity low of releasing criminals on parole which subsequently become a major threat to the civil society. It has been observed and revealed by number of statistics that the prisoners, who out on the parole, indulge themselves in criminal activities by taking benefit of their provisional release .
Cons
As contrast to the pros, there are number of cons as well for the death penalty or the capital punishment. Few important cons are discussed as under;
- It has been argued that the capital punishment is a cost-effective method. But on the same time, most of the cases of death penalty are pleaded in the higher courts. The cost of higher courts is more than the execution of the penalty. The additional court procedures and extra number of appeals therefore decrease the effectiveness of cost of the death penalties .
- There are number of people who are of the view that the capital punishment is cruel, barbaric, and obviously inhuman, irrespective of the intensity and seriousness of the crime .
- The death penalty has been declared and considered by most of the propagators of the human right as a blatant violation of the individual’s right of living. As for as the right of living of a person is concerned, is the natural right of the individual, but living with dignity and honor is the right provided by the state.
- Eventually, question about the capital punishment in the minds of the people of America has been provoked that whether the those people convicted of the violent offense deserve to the death penalty or the federal governments or the state deserve to destroy those who are the cause of this act. In America, The inheritance of racial bias, racial apartheid, and ethnic discrimination is inevitably obvious in administration of the capital punishment. In a system of criminal justice, the death sentences legally are imposed which treats the person better if he is wealthy and blameworthy than if he is meager and blameless. This immoral condition makes death penalty rejected on the moral grounds not only justifiable but necessary to refuse accepting unjust or unequal punishment given by the administration .
- The capital punishment or the death penalties don’t give the criminal an opportunity or prospect to be regretful of the act done by him. In this case none of the opportunities are given to the people who wanted to improve themselves and feel guilty of their act .
- It has not been proved yet that the capital punishments may deter the potential criminals away from committing crimes. Therefore, justifying the death penalties as discouraging factor to the criminals in future seems only an argument to others .
The discussion
It has been revealed that the cost of the capital punishment is approximately 2 to 5 times greater than keeping the criminals in the prison for even many years. The court procedures are too long and complicated and the decision whether to hang up the criminal or to release is too extensive as it entails numerous petitions. History of the law also reveals that there are many examples of such cases in which more than 20 years have been taken to make a decision on death penalty. This wide-ranging and prolonged process not only requires considerable funding in order to facilitate court officials, attorney general, the judges and court clerks but also the wastage of precious time.
The capital punishment is relatively barbaric and unusual, therefore, it violates right of the human to live honorably. This gift of life has been awarded by God. It is only God who has ultimate authority to assert any life. There are number of methods used for capital punishment for example hanging culprit, electric chair usage and confining the victim in a chamber full of lethal gas. The death sentence also is associated with emotional stress and torture to the family members of prisoner. In contrast, it is also pertinent to mention that the death penalty has also pros which require to be looked at carefully to justify that why this cruel punishment should be implemented. There might be some strong reasons in favor of capital punishment; one of the main reasons is that it assists to minimize the crime rate as it sounds warning to the people who are engaged in the criminal offences.
Conclusion
As far as liking or disliking of the capital punishment is concerned, it has not yet conclusively been decided whether to adopt this method or not. There are number of advantages and disadvantages of giving capital punishment to the criminal and therefore, it is concluded that there are numerous pros and cons linked with the death penalty. If we compare the pros and cons, it can be observed though the studies that the cons are more important than the pros, for example, one of the acceptable thought across the world that life of human is absolutely been presented by the God and no other person or state in the world have the mandate to carry out such prosecution.
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