Capital penalty of punishment has been a divisive topic and there are many different theories which oppose as well as support capital punishment. Today, most of the countries have abolished capital punishment, even for the most dreadful criminal activities. Instead of being hanged to death, the criminals are instead imprisoned for lifetime. This is because taking the life of a person, even a criminal, cannot be justified under any situation. However, there are some nations which are still advocate that capital crimes such as murder or terrorism should be dealt with capital punishments.
One of the basic reasons of capital punishment to be eliminated for any sorts of crimes is because it is both morally as well as ethically wrong to take the life of a living person. Even if a person has committed a very awful crime; other options, besides capital punishment, are available to make them suffer. Taking their lives means that another person has been killed and there is literally no difference between the way a criminal deals and the way the law is dealing with them. Another point is that if a person has done something wrong, he/she should at least be given one chance to make an effort to make up for it. Through capital punishment, all chances are taken away from the offender and their life is taken away from them (Thiroux, 1980).
Ethically, if a person has killed the other one, he deserves a punishment, yet the purpose of that punishment is that the offender won’t repeat the mistake again. However, many examples shows us that sometimes offenders have not really committed the crime and are serving in prison because of false accusation and cases. In such situations, capital punishment will mean that the law is killing an innocent person, which can never be justified through any law of the world.
References
Thiroux, J. P., & Krasemann, K. W. (1980). Ethics: Theory and practice. Glencoe Publishing Company.
