The Death Penalty Dilemma - Research Paper Example

? Death & Dying: Capital Punishment Death & Dying: Capital Punishment There are some questions that social scientists should be able to answer. Either executing people cuts the homicide rate or it does not. Or perhaps it does under certain conditions and not others. In any case, the data are readily available and researchers should be able to answer the question. Of course, this would not resolve the ethical issues surrounding the question, but that is another matter (Capital Punishment and Homicide: Sociological Realities and Econometric Illusions, 2004) Capital punishment or death penalty is one of the major controversial subjects in the current world. Capital punishment is prevailing even in some of the most civilized and democratic countries in the world like America, India etc. In fact capital punishment cases are more in America compared to such cases in other countries. Even though many people argue that capital punishment is necessary to reduce the criminal or terrorist activities, many others are of the view that capital punishment is not suitable to the current advanced and civilized world. Sociologically, it is difficult to justify capital punishment because of the immense value associated with human life. Human life is the most important thing in this earth and it should be preserved or sustained under any circumstances. The secrets behind birth and death are still unknown to us even though science and technology advanced a lot. At the same time, prohibition of capital punishment may force criminals to engage in more and more violent activities and therefore more innocent people may lose their lives. In fact the fear of capital punishment is the only thing which forces criminals for a second thought before conducting hard-core criminal activities. Under such circumstances, prohibition of capital punishment may encourage criminals to engage in more severe criminal activities. In short, it is difficult to justify or criticize capital punishment when we analyse it thorough sociological perspectives. This paper analyses various dimensions of capital punishment with respect to sociological perspectives. Sociological perspectives of capital punishment The aim of punishment is to correct the sociologically unacceptable behaviours of criminals or antisocial elements. However, in the case of capital punishment, the term avoidance is more suitable than correction. In other words, capital punishment is the ultimate form of punishment and it is an irreversible process. The aim of capital punishment is to avoid antisocial elements permanently from the society in order to save the lives of others. The right to live is a natural right for all human beings irrespective of differences in culture, gender, age or socioeconomic status. Since the secrets behind life are yet to be unveiled, deliberate killing of a life cannot be justified under any circumstances. Religions believe that all life forms are the creations of God. If God is the creator of all things in this world, human should also be the creations of God. If that is true, only the creator has the authority to destroy or make corrections on his creations. In other words, by implementing capital punishment, human violates some moral laws. He is trying to execute some actions which are not intended for him by God. If the arguments of religions are correct, the question of how to protect the lives of innocence people is relevant. In a healthy society, killing of innocent people cannot be justified under any moral, legal or sociological laws. The lives of all the people are equal and it is the duty of the society to take precautionary measures to protect the lives of its members. Society has certain norms in preventing killing of innocent people. Capital punishment is one way of preventing criminals from taking the lives of innocent people. In other words, mechanisms like capital punishment used for saving the lives of people are difficult to digest for an ordinary person. Saving the lives of innocent people by killing criminals is not good for a healthy or civilized society. “If we execute a person, what is the difference between us and the criminal who has committed the horrifying crime of killing another individual”(10 Pros and Cons of Capital Punishment, 2010). “Distribution, Miscarriages of information and Deterrence are often cited as reasons to justify death penalty. Equality is morally less important than justice and justice is independent of distributional inequalities” (Van den Haag, 1986). Equality and justice are two sociological terms which never go in parallel directions. If we provide equality to criminals, innocent people will never get justice. In other words, if we protect the lives of criminals in the name of equality, innocent people will continue to lose their lives and they will never get justice. So equality can be visualized as a natural right only in an ideal society in which all people stay away from criminal activities. There is also a chance that an individual is innocent and is wrongly charged for a crime he has never committed. There have been cases where individuals were released after being given death sentence, because they were proved innocent. There are also cases where a person's innocence was proved after he was put to death. Hence, it is best to avoid executing a person Capital punishment never allows a criminal to change his behaviour as in the case of other forms of punishments (10 Pros and Cons of Capital Punishment, 2010). Capital punishment is an ultimate form of punishment and it is irreversible. In other words, once a criminal is being executed, nobody can return his life even if he found to be innocent later. Our criminal justice system has lot of loopholes and the probabilities of punishing an innocent person cannot be ruled out. The declared aim of criminal justice system in many countries is that even if thousands of criminals escaped, an innocent person should never be punished. The essence of American criminal justice system is that “partisan advocacy of both sides on a case will promote the ultimate objective that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free” (Ferdic et al, 2008, p.37). However, the chances of punishing an innocent person cannot be ruled out because of the loopholes and malpractices in criminal justice system. There are many cases, in which criminal justice system realises its mistakes later when new evidences are obtained. But, it is impossible for criminal justice system to give the life back to an innocent person who was executed earlier by mistake. “In a recent survey Professors Hugo Adam Bedau and Michael Radelet found that 7000 persons were executed in the United States between 1900 and 1985 and that 35 were innocent of capital crimes” (Van den Haag, 1986). In other words, 35 innocent people lost their lives because of the loopholes in criminal justice system which is not acceptable to a civilized society like America. The ultimate aim of punishments is correction rather than revenge as far as criminal justice system is concerned. It is difficult for human to live like angels. The temptations for committing crimes or sins are inherent genetically in the minds of every human. Holy Bible says sin entered this universe through first human Adam and it is transferred genetically to his offspring. In short, the motivation for committing crime is obtained at the time of birth itself. At the same time, it is possible to reverse this habit with the help of education and awareness programs. That is why many of the children of hard-core criminals become good citizens. In short, criminal tendency can be corrected with the help of corrective mechanisms. Punishment or jail terms are provided to criminals with the intention of correcting them. Many of the criminals engage in violent activities because of the brainwashing of others. For example, Pak terrorists used young people to conduct 2008 Mumbai attack. The lone surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks made a surprise confession at his trial Monday, saying he was recruited by a militant group inside Pakistan after he left a low-paying job and went looking for training to become a professional robber. "Sir, I plead guilty to my crime," said Kasab, 21, triggering a collective gasp in the courtroom. Kasab faces the death penalty if convicted on the charges of murder and waging war against the country (Kinetz, 2009) It should be noted that Kasab is only 21 years of age and he became a weapon in the hands of terrorists because of his poor socioeconomic status in his society. If given another chance, Kasab could become a good citizen. Kasab is going to sacrifice his life because of the religious fundamentalism prevailed in his society in Pakistan. The Pak conservative society taught him that killing of non-believers or enemies of Islam is a sacred act. In other words, society is responsible for transforming Kasab into a hard-core criminal. If Pak society is responsible for the making of a criminal in the form of Kasab, more civilized Indian society should undertake the responsibility of correcting him rather than punishing or killing him according to the views of many of the sociologists in India. All the people are aware of the necessities of giving severe punishments to criminals to save the lives of innocent people in a society. It is fact that the crime rates in a society in which capital punishment is in place are less than societies in which capital punishment is not there. There are many people who support capital punishment since killing of one person may save the lives of a group of innocent people. For example, nobody will blame the killing of Osama Bin Laden since he was responsible for killing thousands of innocent people. A killer cannot argue morally or ethically for his rights to live. Human is the most civilized entity in this world and he cannot behave like animals in a society. “The murderer learns through his punishment that his fellow men have found him unworthy of living; that because he has murdered, he is being expelled from the community of the living”(Van den Haag, 1986). When a criminal commits crimes, he is aware of the consequences. By murdering another person, the criminal reveals his lack of abilities in living in a civilised society by obeying the norms of the society. Failure of the criminal justice system to enforce capital punishment will encourage the criminal to repeat his crimes again and again. Moreover, other criminals will get wrong signals once criminal justice system fails to declare capital punishment. Many of the people have the illusion that capital punishment is the cheapest way of punishing a criminal. In their opinion, life term in prison is expensive since the government forced to bear the expenses of the criminal using the taxpayer’s money. “But, one of the studies has shown that capital punishment is around 70% expensive compared to non death penalty cases or life imprisonment cases” (Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty (Capital Punishment), 2009). Capital punishment cannot be implemented without comprehensive and trial procedures. The court should make sure that the criminal is 100% responsible for committing the crime. For that, t services of smart advocates, evidences from eye witnesses, forensic testing, etc are necessary. All the expenses required to conduct the trail is spent by the government using the tax payer’s money. In short, capital punishment results in wastage of public money in nonproductive sectors. Thy society gets nothing out of killing a criminal. Instead of killing a criminal, it is better to keep him in the jail for the entire period of his life span. Thus the objectives of capital punishment can be obtained using cheaper mean of life terms in prisons. Conclusions There are many arguments in favour and against capital punishment in a civilized society like ours. Supporters of capital punishment believe that the execution of a criminal saves the lives of many innocent people whereas critics of capital punishment argues that by killing a criminal, both the society and the criminal are doing the same crime. Saving the lives of innocent people is the responsibility of a society. In my opinion, society should execute that responsibility by keeping the criminal in the jail for his entire life span rather than killing him. References 10 Pros and Cons of Capital Punishment, (2010), Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/10-pros-and-cons-of-capital-punishment.html Capital Punishment and Homicide: Sociological Realities and Econometric Illusions (2004). Retrieved from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/1275 Ferdico J N, Fradella H F & Totten C D. (2008). Criminal Procedure for the Criminal Justice Professional. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Tenth Edition Kinetz E (2009) Ajmal Kasab, Mumbai Attacks Gunman, Admits Guilt In Dramatic Court Confession. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/ajmal-kasab-mumbai-attack_n_240803.html Pros and Cons of the Death Penalty (Capital Punishment) (2009). Retrieved from http://uspolitics.about.com/od/deathpenalty/i/death_penalty.htm> Van den Haag E. (1986). The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense. Retrieved from www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/procon/haagarticle.html Read More