Nonetheless, Capital Punishment effectively removes the worst criminals from society and consequently should prove much cheaper than long term or permanent incarceration. However, although it is self-evident that dead criminals cannot commit further crimes, only a very small amount of criminals commit further crimes after a jail sentence; the Death Penalty does not take into account that people can change. Many Christians believe a human life is of infinite worth and should not be taken under any circumstances, as this is God’s job.
Although the pain of the victim and the victim’s family cannot be compensated for, many families of the victims regard an execution as a means of closure to the crime, the ordeal for the victim’s family and ensures that the murderer will create no more victims. In contrast, others perceive the Death Penalty as encouraging revenge only to extend the chain of violence.
Capital Punishment does not allow for any mistakes: Innocent people have died. There is no way of compensating for this miscarriage of justice once the executions are carried out. In the US, researchers have estimated that roughly three hundred and fifty innocent people have been wrongfully convicted of murder this century. For twenty three of those prisoners, their evidence had been brought to light after their execution. In Britain, Judith Ward, an innocent person whose life was saved by the abolition of the death penalty, served eighteen years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit before winning her appeal in 1992. Later she said, “No country which resorts to legalised murder can claim to be truly civilised”. It is a violation of the right to life and not to be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment, as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There is no humane method in putting a person to death; every procedure inflicts suffering on the prisoner. What is often overlooked is the psychological torture it can cause. The Lethal Injection - America’s most common method of execution - can take up to thirty minutes of extreme pain before the person dies, eventually the person suffocates as their lungs collapse. This is without doubt a cruel system of execution and therefore should be a violation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Likewise, statistics have revealed Capital Punishment as unfairly biased against certain races. More than forty per cent of those on death row are black even though they make up just twelve per cent of the American population. In 1977, eighty four per cent of those executed were convicted of murdering a white person despite the fact that black and white people are murdered in roughly equal numbers. It would seem that the taking of a white life is more severe than a black life.
In conclusion, with Capital Punishment’s accompanying problems and risks – such as racial inequalities and the inevitable likelihood of innocent deaths – the Death Penalty should not be re-instated in Britain. Although Capital Punishment effectively eradicates dangerous criminals from society, there is no scientific proof that it’s any more of a deterrent than life imprisonment. It is in my opinion, that although our first instinct may be to inflict pain on those who wrong us, the standards of a civilised, mature society demand a more measured response.
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Bibliography
*The Guardian – April 1995 (article – should we kill the killers?)
* The Guardian – May 2000 (Death Penalty)
*Death Penalty Information Centre
*Essential Articles 6,
* Death Penalty, by Amnesty International.