Capital Punishment essay

Capital punishment is punishment by death for committing a crime. The death penalty has been imposed for such serious crimes as armed robbery, kidnapping, rape and treason. Since the early 1800's, the majority of executions taken place were for the crime of murder. Capital punishment has been going on for generations and is still used in many countries today. In the year 2000 around 1,457 prisoners were executed in 27 countries and 3,058 people were sentenced to death in a further 65 countries. There are still 125 countries that use the death penalty today. In America many States use the electric chair and many use gas and the lethal injection. In Islamic countries it is part of their religious law to use execution. Their methods are often barbaric with use of the guillotine and stoning to death. In Britain the death penalty was abolished in 1965. There is still a law that allows capital punishment to take place in Britain but only for extreme crimes such as high treason, it has never yet been enforced. In 1990 MP's were asked to vote for the reintroduction of the death penalty the votes were 182 for the death penalty and 367 against it thus showing that the majority of MP's opposed capital punishment
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Many people believe that Capital punishment should be enforced. Some believe that criminals may think twice of committing a crime if they knew that they might be killed if they're caught. The British public may feel protected if they knew that a convicted murderer was sentenced to death and not sentenced to prison where they could come out after twenty years or so and kill again. Another reason why some people may want to bring back death penalty is that it will save the taxpayers money. Why give the government money to keep convicts in prison when the ...

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