Death Penalty Debate

Utter the word capital punishment or death penalty and various aspects related to it and all you can see is sparks of heated discussion flying thick and fast. Yes, well, that is the extent to which this issue is being dealt with. There are no two ways in this discussion. Either people and nations support it, or they do not. Yes, there is a huge brouhaha and presentation of arguments from both sides. The basic contention for not supporting is that an innocent individual might be killed, while in the other side those who swear by death penalty say that it acts as a deterrent against crime. Here is more on death penalty debate.

Debate on Death Penalty

The debate on death penalty can be really long and winding, with loads of arguments against death penalty and arguments for the death penalty. Coming up is more on should death penalty be abolished or not.

What the Supporters of Capital Punishment Say
It is believed, primarily by those who swear by death penalty that justice is better served in the form of capital punishment. Moreover, it is a major crime deterrent. Another argument for the death penalty is that by giving the death penalty, there will be no sympathy shown to criminals. By keeping them alive through prisoners' parole, criminals get a chance to escape and thus go scot free, committing more crimes. Capital punishment will curb this. Further, if the person has been proved to be guilty of a heinous crime, with the help of forensic science and advanced investigation methods, there would not be any chance of an innocent person being killed. In addition to this, it is believed that killing a criminal is more humane than incapacitating or keeping that person in jail for decades together. Retribution, or capital punishment for making the criminal realize what the victim went through is another reason for supporting the death penalty. Thus the answer to, should death penalty be allowed? will undoubtedly be yes from this perspective.

The Counter Arguments
Taking ahead the death penalty debate from where we left in the previous section, we will now deal with arguments against death penalty. To begin with, there is chance that innocent people might get executed and it cannot be reversed. Another humanitarian ground for an affirmative to the question should death penalty be allowed is the mental torture the family of the person being executed goes through, which is much more than the cost of the legal procedures and sustaining the criminal. Along with this, another argument against the death penalty is that there is nothing humane in killing a person, whichever way it is done. The reason being that the convicted individual is a live person capable of feeling pain and emotions. If you talk in favor of death penalty in death penalty debate because it deters crime, then it is not actually the case with this point of view. Capital punishment does not act as a deterrent to crime. The flip side is that by killing criminals you might create sympathy for them. Along with this, there is no point in killing the criminal as if he has murdered a person, that person cannot be brought back to life. Also see related information in death penalty statistics.

This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to death penalty debate. It is an extremely precarious issue and both the sides and death penalty pros and cons seem justified. It is a really tough call. I think the following words by Anton Chekhov sum up the dilemma regarding capital punishment very aptly -

Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?