Capital punishment that is also called the death penalty is the process of execution of the people, who committed a serious crime or even series of such offenses. The capital punishment is now considered to be a sanction of last resort, however, earlier it was a usual thing done to a lot of people.
Such measure to prevent further crimes was firstly officially introduced in the 18th century. At that time, 25 types of crime resulted in such a penalty. However, the capital punishment existed much earlier, and the first records are dated from 14th -16th centuries. The first known victim of this punishment was a magician in Egypt in 16th Century BC (Randa, 1997).
Initially, even such small acts of disobedience as marrying a Jew, stealing something or cutting down a tree could result in execution. As for today, 35 countries practice killing people. Some states still allow killing women for the betrayal or not being a virgin before the marriage.
In America, the same law was accepted in 1976 only. However, today the America has the fifth place on amounts of the people executed. The cruelest countries regarding death penalties are China, Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. The countries such as Libya, Vietnam, Korea, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also execute people for crimes. For example, till 2007 year Iran killed 1.663 people, Saudi Arabia 423, Iraq 256, United States 220, Pakistan 171, Yemen 152, North Korea 105, Vietnam 58, Libya 39 and China has executed thousands of people. The total amount of killed people in America, since the capital punishment was legalized, is 1436 (“Death penalty statistics, country by country”).
Among the methods that are used today to execute the offender is lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, firing squad (“Methods of Execution. Authorized Methods “).
The execution itself is the act of extreme cruelty and inhumanity. There are a lot of facts that prove the redundancy of killing people to prevent further crimes. For example, the regions with the highest rate of the executions have the biggest numbers of the murders and robberies. There are a lot of innocent people killed at random. Mentally ill people, socially not protected people, people who suffered from prejudice against their race or religion belong to this group.
This type of punishment is not beneficial for the government as well since the execution is much more expensive than providing for the imprisoned for the whole life. And this money could be spent helping the families and children of the victims. It is assessed that for execution of the offender the state pays more than million dollars, whereas providing the imprisoned for the whole life will cost under $800,000 (“Costs of the Death Penalty”).
Despite all the negative sides of the capital punishment, there are a lot of pro-death penalty activists. They claim that the person who has acted inhumanly has to be treated the same way. If someone took someone’s life, he or she also does not deserve to have the life, even in the prison with awful conditions. Also, they claim that if other people see how the government punishes people, this will become a deterrent from committing the crimes and violence in the future. There are also some cruel people that even do not hide the fact that they are looking forward to leaving the prison and continue killing the people. To execute them means to save the people’s lives.
The opposite side claims that if the God gives the chance to live for these people, he gives them the opportunity to reconsider their lives and repent their sins. By taking away the life of such person and not allowing to use this chance we are acting against the God’s will.
In 1961 the supporters of the deprived people founded the nongovernmental organization “Amnesty International” that is aimed at protecting the human rights. One of the most important objectives of this group is to abandon the capital punishment. Since they turned their efforts to eliminate this kind of punishment, 16 countries had given it up. Today, the number is 140. There is no such thing as a capital punishment for the minors anymore as well (“Death Penalty. Overview.”).
Although the capital punishment is the very harassing procedure, the amount of the crimes in the countries that practice it has never decreased, since it never acted as a deterrent for people. That is why the government should put more efforts into the preventing such crimes. This can be done by providing everyone with the safe childhood, possibility to get a degree, find the job and provide for the family without living in fear that your children will die from the hunger at any time.
Most crimes are committed by not socially protected layers of the society or mentally ill people. By killing them without investigating the reasons and motivations for their actions, we show that we are not only not better than them, but even worse. Because successful, educated authorities, lawyers, judges, advocates perfectly realize what they are doing, unlike these unfortunate victims that hit the dead end.