Views on Capital Punishment

Since ancient times, civilizations and societies had been practicing capital punishment as a form of justice in the judicial system. It is normally used for retribution and incapacitation. Capital punishment existed as early as the Qin dynasty in ancient China. Capital punishment was executed on heinous crimes such as treason, espionage and murders. In countries such as Singapore, sexual crimes e.g. rape and drug trafficking will also receive the death penalty. Capital punishment is irreversible and will cause much pain to the victim’s family members. As societies become more advance, we should work towards the abolition of the capital punishment into more humane ways of executing justice. Capital punishment is not one of the best forms of punishment around as there are many weaknesses; therefore societies should try to abolish the inhumane acts of capital punishment.

Capital punishment deals with life and death, thus its results are irreversible. Once the death sentence is confirmed and the victim executed, the victim cannot be revived from the dead if the victim is found to be innocent in later investigations. This injustice will cause the victim’s family to suffer the pain of losing their family member who did not even commit the crime. The injustice will also cause the society to lose confidence in the judicial system and ultimately the government. In the United States, research suggests that there are as many as 39 cases of wrongful executions that were carried out in face of compelling evidence of innocence or doubt of guilt. Exoneration of more than 15 cases of death row inmates were carried out due to the ability of identifying DNA. This has shown that there are many cases of wrongful executions carried out. This happens especially in countries with lower forensics and investigation technologies, because they are not able to judge the case accurately with specific evidences showing that one is guilty before carrying out capital punishment. Therefore, capital punishment should be abolished and replaced by other forms of punishment more humane and reversible.

The aim of capital punishment is to deter would-be criminals from carrying out a serious crime like murder. It also serves to stop the criminal himself from repeating the same mistake, by executing the offender, he would never kill anyone ever again since he is dead. Of course the latter aim would definitely work, however, this may not prove to be useful for the former. For example, if someone is desperate and is willing to die with someone else just for the sake of revenge or some other aim, he or she would continue to carry out murder. In a case few years back, a Korean student in Virginia Tech massacred teachers and students there before committing suicide. This case has clearly shown that capital punishment is ineffective in deterring crime to a certain extent, causing many serious crimes to happen in the world today. Also, in many places, people sometimes scam tourists to help them in smuggling banned drugs like heroin to other countries without their knowledge. It can be seen here that capital punishment is not effective in deterring crime.

Some argue that capital punishment is a way to make sure that offender would never ever commit the crime again as some criminals would not repent their mistakes and continue to commit such crimes, endangering the society. However, we must consider many aspects of the case. In some cases, the offender may be scammed into offending the law without his or her own knowledge. Also, sometimes the environment the offender is in may force the offender to commit a crime. Under these conditions, it is unfair to enforce capital punishment on these offenders, therefore it would be better to enforce humane ways of punishment, for example long jail term. When the investigation had shown that the offender had repent or had been proven innocent, it can be corrected and compensations can be given to the victim.

In conclusion, although capital punishment is still being practiced in many countries, many people are starting to realize the shortcomings of capital punishment in the judicial system and are moving towards the abolition of capital punishment into more humane ways of punishment to ensure fairness in the system.