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Capital Punishment
In the past, people have invariably felt that if they had been wronged
in some way, it was his or her right to take vengeance on the person that
had wronged them. This mentality still exists, even today, but in a lesser
form because the law has now outlined a person's rights and developed
punishments that conform to those rights, yet allow for the retribution for
their crime. However, some feel that those laws and punishments are too
lax and criminals of today take advantage of them, ie. organized crime,
knowing very well that the punishments for their crime, whether it be
murder, theft, or any other number of criminal activities, will be so
negligible that it may be well worth their risk.
Although in the past, the number of crimes that were subjected to
capital punishment, defined simply as the death penalty for a crime, were
outrageous. Amendments were made to reflect the changes in the society's
views on the morality of capital punishment. That resulted in the
narrowing down of the list of one hundred crimes to twelve, punishable by
the death penalty in 1833, and in 1869 it was cut down yet again to just
three: treason, rape, and murder because of violent nature of these crimes.
These crimes, even today, are still viewed as violent and should be
punished with the highest degree of discipline available to achieve justice.
After much public pressure, capital punishment was suspended on a
trial run in 1967. This proved to be ineffective, because even though the
law stipulated that crimes such as treason or the murder of law enforcement
agents, were still to be subjected to the death penalty, the federal
cabinet continued to commute those criminals from death to life sentences,
hence the law was not being followed and justice was not being served.
This soon was followed with capital punishment's abolishment in 1976, as a
formal declaration of what was already happening or rather what was not
happening. It is felt that because of this and the fact that there has not
been an execution since 1967, that today's current form of punishments are
no longer a sufficient deterrent for such serious crimes and have
contributed to a ever rising crime rate.
So, this is where the real issue of whether or not capital punishment
should exist begins and such a controversial issue could be best understood
if we looked at capital punishment in a perspective of how it fulfils or
does not fulfil society's ideas of punishment :
Is not one of the four fundamental objectives behind punishment
retribution? The sentencing objective based on
the principle of "an-eye-for-an-eye", which means that what
one person has done to another should also be done to that
person in return. Is that not justified, especially in
cases of premeditated murder of another human begin, another
life?
Does capital punishment not act as a deterrent? Does
it not threaten with an imposition of a penalty for the
commission of an act considered wrong by society?
What about segregation? Does capital punishment remove
criminals from society so that they cannot repeat their
offence or commit other offences against society?
Doesn't capital punishment follow the above three objectives well??
Most people would say it does. But then, of course, people who support the
abolishment of capital punishment would ask about rehabilitation, the
re-training of prisoners with an employable skill for use when they
are released. Not only is it expensive to re-train and house criminals,
but with some, it is just not possible, because they are hardened
criminals and will not change. For those
people, it is just not worth the effort and the taxpayers'
money to even attempt to reform them.
Also, another point to consider is that today prison terms are not
enough. Many people are allowed out early on
parole and/or remission resulting in criminals just serving
one third of their prison terms and being released back into
society. This type of quick release cannot adequately
retribute someone's death nor deter others strongly enough
from repeating the same offence that the criminals already
have.
As you can see, capital punishment fulfils our society's "checklist"
of what a punishment should do, especially the objective of retribution.
Many people who want capital punishment restored, have also clearly
stated that without a suitable punishments for crimes, justice will never
truly be served to those that have suffered damages or losses. People will
think less and less of the law and start resorting to "private law and
order". This would not only create chaos but raise the crime rate further
with people running around on private vendettas.
Even with these facts and arguments, the federal government refuses to
restore the death penalty. So all we can do now is protest to the
government, wait, and hope that it will not take a high crime rate and the
loss of many innocent lives before they realize what a mistake they made in
1976 by totally abolishing capital punishment.
... A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live.
- Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
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