"Should Capital Punishment Be Legal In Britain?"

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          “Should Capital Punishment Be Legal In Britain?”  

        

The death penalty continues to face much opposition. Can the death penalty, adopted by nations such as the USA, Singapore and Afghanistan, possibly be a morally acceptable punishment in British society today? Since capital punishment became outlawed in 1965, the murder rate in Britain has inflated by over 100 per cent. Is this reason enough to re-instate the practice considered by many, as a barbaric form of revenge?

The death penalty has a number of incontrovertible arguments. Perhaps the most important question would be how far does capital punishment act as a disincentive to murder? Does it effectively discourage would-be murderers from committing the crime? Death Penalty Information Centre records reveal that execution doesn’t seem to have an ‘educative effect’. There have been no more murders committed during the years in which Capital Punishment had been ruled illegal. In addition, the US states which do not employ the Death Penalty generally have lower murder rates than those that do which indicates killing is not directly related to expectation of punishment.

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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 ...

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