Capital Punishment

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT – DEATH PENALTY

Dear colleagues,

Is capital punishment good? Is it morally right? Is it a deterrent?

Capital punishment is the legal infliction of death for violating criminal law. It is also known as the death penalty, and it is mostly used to punish capital crimes. The death penalty is rejected by many societies because it is not morally good according to them, but some societies accept it because they live in harmful places, full of crimes, and use it as a “deterrent”, for example, the state of Texas (this state according to the statistics is the one with most kills in the country of the United States). In my opinion capital punishment is not right because anyone has the right to take away someone’s life and is. My hypothesis is that the death penalty won’t decrease the crime rates in many countries.

Throughout history and in many different parts of the world, societies have devised a wide assortment of punishment methods. In ancient times, societies accepted the law of equal retaliation (known as lex talionis), a form of corporal punishment that demanded “an eye for an eye.” If one person’s criminal action involved killing, authorities would equal maim the criminal, in this case: death.  They used to use this punishment as a deterrent of crimes, so the people would be frightened and would “think” about making a crime or not.

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Now in these times people are more “moral”, therefore, some countries and societies have abolished the death penalty. They have done this because it is against human rights, and in most of the cases, the religion prohibits taking away the life of a person (the 6th of the Commandments says “You shall not murder”). As many people oppose this issue, many are on favour of it. “For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists”. This was said by Albert Camus a person who is against death penalty. And an ...

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