Punishment, with a Capital P. (Capital punishment)

Member Name: TheDrowningMan

Product:	Capital punishment
Date:	27/01/01 (173 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Deterent, Would stop criminals reoccuring.

Disadvantages: Can get it wrong, innocent people sentenced to death.

Capital punishment is always a controversial subject to write on. Justice and morals must come into play when talking about whether capital punishment should be brought back, in the UK. It seems to be a good deterent, would YOU particularly like to spend the last years of your life on 'death row' only to finally be killed in a 'humane' way??? No, me neither. But if it is such a good deterent, then why does america, a country whos justice is placed heavily on capital punishment, have some of the highest crime rates of the developed world???

Well, maybe the punishment of death isnt that much of a deterent at all, or maybe it is imposed too conservatively? Whatever the reasons, the question arises, 'how affective is capital punishment?'. Well, in the
U.S, the amount of crime that is punishable by death, such as rape or murder, is relitavely low, compared to places such as the UK. Although the amount of petty crime, or not so petty crime, such a burglary, is higher in the U.S.

There is the classic story of the two armed criminals on the run from the police in london, and one shouts to the other 'let him have it!', and the other criminal shot the police officer. Now, the actual marksman was too young to be prosecuted, but the guy who gave the order was prosecuted, and hung for his crimes. But was it an order to kill the officer, or was it a request for the man to surrender the gun to the officer, i.e give him the gun. Now, the problem is..we can never pardon a man killed by capital punishment, in an effective way, and we cant revoke the decision once carried out.

My viewpoint on the matter is, that if capital punishment was introduced for certain cases, such as mass murder, i.e Dr Shippman, rape, or child abuse, i feel it would be affective. These are the most extreme crimes, and lets face it, if we had a chance to sentence child abusers or murders such as the evil 'person' who murdered little Sarah
Payne, we would all take it, and any chance to lessen this type of crime through deterents, i feel, would be very justified.

My overall opinion is that capital punishment is an effective deterent for crime, and as such, should be used to punish the extreme crimes, such as mentioned earlier. Although there may be some false accusations, and bad mistakes, the deterent factor of the punishment, and the subsequent lowering in the rate of extreme crime would be worth it in the long run. Lets hope in the future, it will finally be realised that this is the only way to truely treat evil criminals, so they never get a chance to subject the same distress on anyone again.

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