Anthropology of Death
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Capital punishment refers to simply punishing the offender by death. Crimes that are punishable by death include the capital crimes to which include treason, murder, espionage, crimes against humanity, war crimes as well as genocide (Lippman, 2016). There are various ways to which the offender suffers death to which may include a firing squad, lethal injection, hanging or even stoning. Capital punishment is allowed in a majority of the western countries with the methods of execution being lethal injection or the use of the electric chair. Despite a large proportion of the nations of the world abolishing capital punishment, there are dozens of countries that continue to effect it in their countries. Both of the countries to whom have abolished the capital punishment and those who haven’t have their reason for using or not using it to punishing the offenders. The debate as to whether capital punishment should be abolished is controversial, and therefore each side has continued to cling on their perspective terming themselves to be right.
There are various reasons as to why capital punishment is considered to be advantageous and to which the countries that use capital punishment cling onto as a reason for using it to punish their offenders. One of the reasons is that capital punishment is termed to be an excellent deterrent to potential offenders in the future who wish to commit the same crime (Chalfin & McCrary, 2017). The reason is that having the knowledge that they could be put to death for committing a similar crime, the potential offenders may reconsider their decision and therefore revert from doing the wrong by avoiding it. Capital punishment may work best especially if the offenders value their lives and that they would not like to lose for committing a crime that would lead them to be eliminated from the world.
Besides, the death penalty aids in the elimination of the dangerous individuals such as the serial killers from the face of the world and the general society to which they are a threat to the lives of many. For this case, the termination of a single life to save many is worthy than keeping the offender alive as the act of holding alive or subjecting them to a different punishment may not reverse their actions and may even claim other souls despite being subjected to that punishment. It is, therefore, a better choice to terminate the specific individual’s life rather than sparing them to commit more crimes such as murder and treason.
Death punishment can be termed as being far much cheaper rather than deterring the prisoner in a maximum prison for the rest of their lives (Clear, Reisig & Cole, 2018). The reason to why it is cheaper is because when the offender is dead, they require no care from the government; they don’t require shelter, medication clothing, and even food to which costs the government a lot of resources to keep a criminal who has been imprisoned for life. The only resources that are required to execute the offender are minimal depending on the manner of death, for example, one bullet is enough to kill a person or using a lethal dose to eliminate the life. It is through this that capital punishment is considered cheaper as it saves the government more money and resources to which are channeled to development activities.
An eye for an eye or a life for a life is fair retribution as human life is the most valuable asset to a person owns and therefore if their life is terminated, the murderer as well should face the same sentence to make it fair. A murderer does not deserve to live while they have ended the life of another innocent person and therefore the government finds it worthy to subject the person to the same treatment to that which they have committed. The act for fairness may reduce the incidences in the future of murdering other people in the fear that they may get caught and subjected to the death penalty as well.
Capital punishment being a two-edged issue, have both advantages and disadvantages and therefore apart from the above benefits, other reasons hinder its application in a majority of other countries. One of the main reason is that a significant number of innocent people get convicted by mistake, and the use of the death sentence prevents for the future correction of the mistake (Hood & Hoyle, 2015). There are many reasons as to innocent individuals being convicted for the mistakes that they never conducted and one of them include poor and delayed investigations. The quality of investigations deters the innocent person for being proven not guilty and end up being convicted for the actions that they never committed, leading to the wrong execution.
Life is sacred, and therefore no individual has the right to eliminate the life of another person (Hayek, 2014). God is the sole provider of life and is the one responsible for terminating the life as life is considered to be a gift from God. Any other person is not mandated or provided with the authority over an individual’s life. It is therefore bad to terminate the life of the offender and but instead, imposing life imprisonment to the offender may be ideal. Even though lie is sacred, the death penalty is considered as inhuman and barbaric as it creates a brutal society. It against the human rights that a person’s life is terminated, and therefore advocating for the conservation of the life as it is precious is upheld.
Despite the use of capital punishment to deter potential offenders from committing a similar crime, there has not been any tangible evidence that the capital punishment was a deterrent to potential criminals (Donohue, 2015). Instead of acting as a deterrent, more and more similar crimes have continued to be conducted by other criminals, and therefore, the issue of deterrence becomes more questionable. Besides, extremists such as terrorists are regarded to be heroes or martyrs to which may encourage other individuals to follow and this encourages them to conduct such crimes that call for capital punishment. It will, therefore, be hard to deal with such a society, and consequently, other punishments may be applicable.
In conclusion, the issue regarding capital punishment is controversial and has continued to sparkle debates as to whether it is worthy of retaining it or abolishing it with all the sides having their take. The countries to which use it terms it as being a deterrent but those who don’t term it as being inhuman and against the will of God. There has been no evidence linking the use of capital punishment as a deterrent to committing crimes and can be used by extremist to cause chaos waiting to be put to death as they will be honored as martyrs, thereby making capital punishment being of no value and use. Instead, other penalties maybe advocated such as exposing the criminals to hard labor with no socialization may be more effective.
Reference
Chalfin, A., & McCrary, J. (2017). Criminal deterrence: A review of the literature. Journal of Economic Literature, 55(1), 5-48.
Clear, T. R., Reisig, M. D., & Cole, G. F. (2018). American corrections. Cengage Learning.
Donohue, J. (2015). There is no evidence that death penalty is a deterrent against crime. The Conversation.
Hayek, F. A. (2014). The constitution of liberty. Routledge.
Hood, R., & Hoyle, C. (2015). The death penalty: A worldwide perspective. OUP Oxford.
Lippman, M. (2016). Essential Criminal Law. SAGE Publications.
