3. There is obviously a lot of controversy concerning whether or not the death penalty is an
appropriate punishment for grave criminal offenses, such as mass murder. Provide a
personal perspective on the death penalty.
Death penalty is a capital punishment which has for long sparked debate about both its morality
and its effect on criminal behavior. Death penalty is generally associated with murderers and armed
robbers who are considered to be very dangerous criminals.
Most of the people in the society we live in believe that capital punishment is a just form of
retribution, expressing and reinforcing the moral indignation not only of the victim’s relatives but
of law-abiding citizens in general. Religion has also supported death sentence as evidenced by it
being prescribed for crimes in many sacred religious documents and historically practiced widely
with the support of religious hierarchies. For example, in the Old Testament of the bible the Jewish
law allowed the offenders to be stoned to death.
Death penalty is often defended by some members of the society on the grounds that society has a
moral obligation to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens of which murderers threaten this
safety and welfare. To ensure that convicted killers do not kill again, murderers should be put to
death for the safety of the society members.
Capital punishment bring about the greatest balance of good over evil, and capital punishment is
one such practice which benefits the society because it may deter violent crime. The argument in
support of the notion that death penalty deters violent crimes is that if people know that they will
die if they perform a certain act, they will be unwilling to perform that act. It can be a better idea
for society to sacrifice the murderers through death penalty to protect the lives of innocent people
than saving their lives under the assumption that capital punishment does not deter violent crimes.
capital punishment also has a uniquely potent deterrent effect on potentially violent offenders for
whom the threat of imprisonment is not a sufficient restraint.
However, death sentence is counterproductive in the moral message it conveys and it is immoral
when used for lesser crimes. Capital punishment can be argued to violate the condemned person’s
right to life and it is fundamentally inhuman and degrading. Human life is considered sacred by
most of the people in the society such that anyone who have taken the life of another is considered
to have forfeited their own right to life.
Tracking the historical application of capital punishment shows that any attempt to single out
certain kinds of crime as deserving of death will inevitably be arbitrary and discriminatory. The
disadvantaged groups of the society such as and the poor and ethnic and religious minorities often
do not have access to good legal assistance resulting in some people being executed for crimes
they did not commit. Death penalty can be applied with racial discrimination in other countries
and also in poor African countries where political tensions are high, members of the opposition
parties may be erroneously convicted and executed as a way of silencing other political activists.
Since errors are inevitable, even in a well-run criminal justice system, some members of the society
maybe executed for the crimes they did not commit. The death penalty is a way of legitimizing an
irreversible act of violence by the state and inevitably claim innocent victims. The risk of
erroneously or systematically executing the innocent can never be eliminated as long as human
justice remains fallible.
When one is convicted, the appeals process for death sentences is protracted to the extent that those
condemned to death are often cruelly forced to endure long periods of uncertainty about their fate.
Death penalty does not go hand and glove with civilized societies which do not tolerate torture
even if it can be shown that torture may deter, or produce other good effects. Death penalty is
therefore an inappropriate measure for a modern civilized society to respond to even the most
dreadful crimes.
It is generally the duty of the state to punish crime as a means to preserve an orderly and contented
society, but it should do so in the least harmful way possible. Other way of punishing offenders
will always enable the state to fulfil its objective of punishing crime appropriately, therefore the
state should not always use capital punishment. Death penalty is the most harmful punishment
available, so the state should only use it if no less harmful punishment is suitable.