Is capital punishment justified essay
Capital punishment is the execution of an individual from the state as punishment for a crime. Over the ages, capital punishment was given to offenders by using a variety of methods like lethal injection, hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, etc.
The question facing us is"Is capital punishment justified?" The death sentence as a punishment has been subject to controversy because of as long.
The simple reason is the ethical and humanitarian questions attached to it. For this, one should comprehend the death sentence alone. In most countries, capital punishment is a way of suppressing crimes and political dissent.
It's given as a punishment for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as an element of military justice. In some countries, even sexual crimes, such as rape, sodomy and adultery, and drug trafficking carry the death penalty. In China, human trafficking can be considered as a capital crime.
The question that's continually debated is that when should capital punishment be granted? What type of crime or crime would require capital punishment? When someone commits a heinous crime against another being, including, someone that has raped an eight-month pregnant woman, then murdered her? Or an abominable burglar?
Or if a serial killer with no conscience be incriminated? Some might say that life imprisonment is a simple way out and it would also give the opportunity to reform the offender.
There's a massive uproar anywhere against capital punishment and death sentence, saying it's immoral and that it infringes the inalienable right of life of somebody.
In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is a pledge among countries to promote Fundamental Rights as the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace on earth.
Article 3 of the Declaration states that everyone has the right to life, freedom, and safety of someone. A group of reformers called abolitionists interpreted the life punishment combined with these conditions and reached the conclusion that the death penalty is a violation of human rights as it deprives a person of his right to live. If such reasoning is followed, then the state should abolish prisons as it violates an individual's right to liberty.
Article 5 of the Declaration says that nobody shall be subjected to cruel and degrading punishment. Abolitionists insist that capital punishment ought to be ruled out because it's a cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. But one noticeable aspect the abolitionists and the majority of men and women miss out on is the simple fact of justice to the victim.
In the battle for justice and human rights, one normally forgets about the victim's right to justice. What about the mind of the victim, that has been wronged? If the criminal has a right to live, then the sufferer possesses the same right. The person that has infringed another individual's right to live peacefully and respectfully should be meted out with comparable treatment.
There are many arguments put forward against the death sentence. The classic one is that society can't demonstrate that killing is wrong by killing. Even Gandhiji said, "Hate the sin, not the sinner". It's further added that capital punishment is an act of vengeance as opposed to retribution and therefore, is a dubious idea.
The anticipatory anguish of the offender, who might be held on death row for several years, makes the punishment more severe than simply depriving the offender of life. Some people also argue that the death sentence doesn't deter crime but recent studies have demonstrated that for every inmate put to death, three to eighteen murders are prevented.
Moreover, we discuss the sanctity of life. However, isn't the sanctity of life of the sufferer is more significant than the convict's life. In our zeal to protect the rights of criminals, we shouldn't minimize the rights of the victims. An innocent's life ought to be valued over the offenders.
The most trivial argument of all is that executing a murderer won't bring back the victim. Justice isn't about bringing the dead back. It's all about implementing the consequences of one's own action.
It's about preventing potential misfortune and safeguarding the life span of the vulnerable and about arming the feeble. Some folks stress the barbaric nature of the death penalty as a reason for its abolition, forgetting that the acts perpetrated by the people sentenced aren't exactly humane.
Additionally, the death sentence is much more humane and easy to experience than life imprisonment because it finishes the torture of the offenders in few minutes rather than the torture he would experience in prisons for quite a long time.
Our late ex-President APJ Kalam in his book 'burning Point' wrote that as a President his function was to find every case analyzed and establish the facts against those awaiting the gallows.
He also went on to discover that nearly all of the cases pending had a social and economic prejudice attached to them. From the Afzal Guru case the method by which the implementation was carried out in utmost secrecy resulted in an unprecedented move on the part of the state.
Where it had been stated that in trying to steamroll a morally bankrupt resistance and a media campaign of surpassing banality, the government has shown both its Achilles heel and the cruel side.
An Oscar-winning film (foreign language category), The Secret in their Eyes' has also outlined the many aspects associated with capital punishment. In the public discourse, there's a belief that we hang the murderer, we hang the rapist and we will discourage all future crimes.
This is quite a consequentialist argument, satisfying the ending with no acceptable means. A count where free legal help is at best a mockery into the machine, there's no denying the fact that the majority of those awaiting death sentences are of poorer background.
Therefore, it's preposterous to maintain capital punishment. This process in its underbelly is antithetical to the core goal of the criminal justice system, to reform and rehabilitate.
It has been rightly saying, "Gallows aren't just a symbol of death, but they also signify cruelty and brutality, an apostle of primitive savagery; terror and irrelevance for life; medieval fanaticism and modern totalitarianism".
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