Capital Punishment: an Irrational Way to Prevent Crime
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, has been around since the 5th century. The death sentence has remained a largely controversial topic for hundreds of years and it still is. In the death penalty was abolished in 1965 with The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act. However, there are over 50 countries in the world today where this useless punishment is still, for some foolish reason, legal. Within the capital punishment research paper this irrational act is analysed.
Firstly, people accused of crimes and charged for them have been found innocent a concerning number of times in the past, this has happened with almost all types of crimes. The death Penalty in particular has been affected by these poorly timed revelations. Since 1973, over 8,700 people have been given capital punishment in the USA, a well-developed country. A minimum of 182 people were innocent. The death penalty isn't the kind of sentence you can give someone and just hope you made the right choice. You are in control of someone's life. Would you like to kill someone because you think there will be some sort of advantage for yourself? What if instead you accidentally murder an innocent person? You are just as guilty. Judges and lawyers are only humans, they make mistakes too. Which is why we shouldn't risk executing anyone. Nevertheless, once a death penalty has gone through you cannot give this person their life back. If someone who was originally found guilty is later proven innocent, it will most likely be too late to spare their life.
Some may say that capital punishment is the best way to deal with the most savage criminals as it's less expensive. However, this is false, capital punishment is far more expensive than other more suitable punishments. A life sentence without parole is far cheaper than it would be to legally murder someone. But why would you want to compare the expense of a human life to the expense of providing someone as little as the most basic food and clothing? In many places in the USA, research has found that pursuing death penalty cases can cost up to 10 times more than a life sentence.
Additionally, a life sentence would be a much more effective punishment than an execution. If you were to commit a crime such as arson, rape, or multiple murders, spending decades locked away from society and your family would do much more harm than a quick death. When capital punishment was first created its purpose was to make criminals suffer a slow and agonising death, punishing those who had been accused of such crimes. Now it seems like we don't even try to discipline offenders. It's an antiquated and ignorant remedy. If they've done something horrendous, we kill them off so we do not need to deal with them in a more professional way, at least that's what it seems. Would you rather those who run our countries dealt with matters like these the easy way, in a childish manner, or to acknowledge how they are murdering their own people?
While it's obvious that some inmates may never be rehabilitated, the death penalty destroys any possibility of such thing happening. We as a society have acknowledged we need to reform our prison system and use rehab whenever we can. Rehabilitation can work but if we don't put effort into helping inmates and instead execute them, crime rates will keep rising. Putting criminals on death row does nothing to prevent other people from committing the same crime. However, if we can properly intervene, give out punishments that will teach lessons, people might just learn something from that. We should be using punishments that fit the crime, not just killing criminals off.
Ultimately, the use of death penalties is no longer an effective way to punish criminals. It's a harsh punishment that does not prevent other people from committing the same crime and when we use capital punishment there is no way to be fully sure if we are executing the right person. There are better ways to punish criminals that are cheaper and more humane.
