There are 4 main reasons for the death penalty these include: Incapacitation of the criminal, cost, retribution, and deterrence.
The Incapacitation of the criminal means that Capital punishment permanently removes the worst criminals from society and would prove much cheaper and safer for the rest of the country than long-term or permanent imprisonment. It is clear that the criminal would be unable to re offend or cause any harm to society surely making it safer and more productive for the society.
The cost of executing a murderer or rapist would be far less than the cost of keeping an offender in prison for ‘life’. It is a fact that the average cost of a prisoner in modern day prisons averages at £600 pounds per week and over a period of many years the total cost in some cases exceeds £5000000, surely if the prisoner was not kept alive then the benefit to society would be huge as that money being used to keep a murderer alive could be spent educating the adults of the future and improving our way of life
Retribution simply means making the criminal pay for their crime,
Execution is a very real punishment rather than some form of "rehabilitative" treatment for example giving the criminal counselling. The criminal is made to suffer in accordance to the offence. Although whether an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth should still apply is a matter of personal opinion. Retribution is seen by many as an acceptable reason for the death penalty, according to survey results
Deterrence, It is hard to prove if the death penalty is an effective deterrent in modern society although there is evidence to suggest that it is. For example in Singapore the crime rate fell dramatically when the death penalty was introduced by as much as 50% showing it to be an effective means of deterrent. It is hard to see how any humane person could not feel threatened or at least wary of their life being taken for a crime, would it make you think twice?
Since the abolition of capital punishment it is a fact that the murder rate more than doubled (to around 750 per year) and is now around a 1000 a year at present. There have been 71 murders committed by people who have been released after serving "life sentences" in the period between 1965 and 1998 and in the five years that the death sentence was scrapped there was a 125% increase in crimes that would have previously been subject to the death sentence.
There are a number of arguments against the death penalty.
The most important one in most peoples view the virtual certainty that genuinely innocent people will be executed and that there is no possible way of bringing them back if found innocent.
A second reason, that is often overlooked, is the trauma the innocent family and friends of criminals must also go through in the time leading up to and during the execution and which will often cause them serious mental distress for years afterwards. It is often very difficult for people to come to terms with the fact that their loved one could be guilty of a serious crime and even more difficult to come to terms with their death in this form.
There must always be the concern that the state can administer the death penalty justly, most countries have a very poor record of doing this. In America a prisoner can be on death row for many years (on average eleven years awaiting the outcome of appeals and their chances of escaping execution are better if they are wealthy and white rather than poor and black Although, statistics show that white prisoners are more liable to be sentenced to death on conviction for first degree murder and are also less likely to have their sentences dismissed than black offenders.
It is clear that the death penalty can never be completely full proof, for example in 1998 in Singapore 3 18 year old girls were all tried and killed for the same murder meaning a loss of 1 if not 2 innocent lives of young adults.
There is no such thing as a humane method of putting a person to death Every form of execution causes the prisoner suffering, some methods perhaps cause less than others, but being executed is a terrifying and gruesome ordeal for the criminal. What is also often forgotten is the mental torture that the criminals suffer in the time leading up to the execution. How would you feel knowing that you were going to die in 24 hours?
However there is an alternative to the death sentence and that is sticking to the ‘life’ sentence and not releasing the prisoner after so many years as figures show that over 20% of prisoners convicted of ‘life’ have gone on to re-offend in similar ways and if this could not happen then it is a definite possibility to convict an offender to life and stick to it.
After studying the many different opinions of the death penalty it is clear that there many views on the matter and many facts and figures representing why the death penalty should or should not be reinstated into Britain.
However, in my personal opinion I believe that a criminal should pay for what they have done and methods of deterrence at present times are just not as tough as they should be. So for a safer and more productive society I think that harsher measures should be inforced and criminals should be brought to justice, whether or not this means ending their lives or not is a matter of personal opinion and will surely be debated for many years, if it is enforced or not is up to the public and government to decide.
