Pros of Capital Punishment
For many years, the debate on whether capital punishment should be upheld as a form of punishment in the judicial system has been ranging with a cross-section of people arguing that it should be abolished while others argue that it should be retained. This debate took center stage a couple of years back and up to today, it is still being debated with its fate hanging in the balance. This discussion takes an in-depth look at this form of punishment and focuses on the main reasons why it should be legalized and be retained as a form of punishment.
Capital punishment refers to the killing or execution of a person through a judicial order after such a person has been found guilty of an offense. The offense in this case must be one that is quite grave as to attract such a penalty. While capital punishment has remained controversial over the years, this form of punishment ought to be retained as there are many positive attributes to this form of punishment.
The first reason as to why this form of punishment needs to be upheld is to reduce congestion in our prisons. (Sarat, 2002) Prisons are supposed to play three important roles. The first role is to ensure that criminals are separated from the rest of the society thus ensuring that the society is safe. Secondly, prisons are a form of punishment where a criminal is supposed to be confined so as to pay for all the crimes committed. The third reason is to rehabilitate a criminal so that they can later be released back to the society after reforming. However, any person found guilt of a felony that is punishable death will not be released. It is therefore not necessary to keep death row inmate in prison as this will result to even more congestion in our prisons. Capital punishment should therefore be allowed to provide avenue of getting rid of those hardcore criminals thus decongesting our prison systems. This will also mean that there will reduce the budget allocated to the prison system so that less money will be spent by the federal government and instead will be channeled to other areas of the economy. (Mandery. 2002)
Capital punishment also ensures that the society is protected from hardcore and violent criminals. (Mandery, 2002) For a criminal to be sentenced to capital punishment, it means that they have committed such a serious crime that would be classified under felonies. This has direct implication that if such people are allowed to live and interact with other members of the society, they are likely to cause more harm than good. There is a high possibility that they will commit other heinous crimes and the only way to ensure that this is avoided by getting rid of them completely.
Due to the pain and magnitude that is attached to this form of punishment, would be offenders are made to fear and this helps reduce the rate of crime. Although the capability of capital punishment to reduce crime rate has been debated on with some people arguing that it has not been successful, this form of punishment has helped a great deal in reducing the rate of crime. This has been achieved by instilling fear on would be criminals as they fear what may happen to them if they are found guilty of a serious crime.
It is also argued that this form of punishment is good as it gives criminals a dose of their own medicine. It is argued that the form of punishment meted on a criminal should be proportionate to the gravity of crime committed. By so doing, it is argued that justice will have been achieved. Therefore, capital punishment ensures that criminals suffer the same amount of pain that they inflicted on their victims. For example, if a criminal kills a victim, he also deserved to die and suffer the same measure of pain just as their victim. This is what has come to known as an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth justice.
The issue of capital punishment remains in the balance in the judicial systems of most countries. In most countries of the world, capital punishment is law only in writing but is never practiced as the controversy surrounding this form of punishment continues. However, this form of punishment should be upheld for the reason that keeping an inmate in prison for life is more torturous when they wait each day in anxiety for the time the will be taken to the gallows.
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