Death Penalty

 Nowadays, some countries, such as the U.S.A., China, Iran etc., still retain the use of death penalty as the most appropriate punishment for the most notorious crimes. Although this is such an ambivalent issue, it is impossible to condone capital punishment.

To begin with, there are many reasons why this lethal punishment should be abolished. First and foremost, execution is inhumane and violates a person's basic right to life.It is also argued that if murder is wrong, then it must be wrong for the state to claim the convicted person's life, or as they say: "Two wrongs do not make a right.". Another case in point is that this is a relatively unique punishment since, in general, violent crimes are not punished by subjecting the perpetrator to a similar act. Apart from that, judicial systems are not infallible and do not always abide by the law (because of individual interests, for instance, profit). As a result, it is inevitable that innocent prisoners will be on death row.

Seen from a different perspective, although advocates of judicial penalty concede that mistakes will be made, they insist that execution is a gratifying deterrent to crime. Furthermore, a common argument is that death penalty is cheaper and more ethical than locking prisoners up for the rest of their lives, making them suffer from the atrocious crime they committed. Lastly, it gives closure to the families of the victims who have inflicted a serious amount of pain. What these arguments overlook, though, is that this "an eye for an eye" method transfers us to the debris of a primitive society, where this policy dominated.

Taking all this into consideration, there is no doubt in my mind that death penalty is a barbaric characteristic of an uncivilised society. As I see it, criminal rehabilitation is the ideal way to reduce recidivism instead of capital punishment.