Reintroducing Death Penalty in UK - Report Example

Running Head: Reintroducing Death Penalty in UK Reintroducing Death Penalty in UK [Institute’s Reintroducing Death Penalty in UK February 14, 2010 The Editor ABC Newspaper London Subject: Reintroduction of Capital Punishment in the United Kingdom Respected Sir I would like to bring in your consideration a very imperative and crucial issue of criminal justice system in the United Kingdom that has been detrimental for the society. In specific, I would like to avail the platform of your reputable newspaper to converse about the capital punishment that needs its reintroduction in the country. Since many centuries, death penalty has been one of the major issues in the legal, as well as human rights’ groups due to its contrasting advocates and adversaries. Analysis (Prejean, pp. 49-52, 2006) has indicated that many governments decided to abolish the death penalty in the past; however, some continued with its implementation. In the United Kingdom, there seems strong wave of advocates that are putting efforts to reintroduce the capital punishment in the UK’s criminal justice system due to various factors. In addition, observation (Hodgkinson & Schabas, pp. 44-51, 2004) has indicated that it is very important to treat criminals punitively, and various criminologists have pointed out that incarceration, remand, and policy custody have not been efficient in eliminating, and even reducing the rate of crimes in the region. On contrary, studies (Home Office, 2010) have shown that there has been considerable increment in the rate of criminal offenders in the United Kingdom that shows the efficacy of such criminological tools. Thus, it is now time that government authorities and establishment should take action to reintroduce the effective tool of capital punishment in criminal justice system of the country. Although there have been many ethical debates regarding this issue that involve disputes regarding the brutal aspect of death penalty, as well as regarding authority of the government to take someone’s life (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, pp. 22-27, 2008). However, despite of such debates based on ethical grounds, in personal opinion, it will be ethical to hang one criminal instead of putting lives of thousands of innocent lives at danger. On statistical grounds, studies have indicated that since the abolishment year of 1964 until now, there has been radical increment in the rate of murders in the United Kingdom. For instance, there were only three hundred assassinations in 1964, whereas, 833 in the year 2004 that shows the drawbacks of abolishing death penalty from the region (Stevens, pp. 286-297, 2009). Besides killings, there has been an increase in homicides as well. Statistics have shown only twenty-nine on average until 1964 that jumped to fifty-seven as soon as the authorities abolished death penalty from the system (Stevens, pp. 286-297, 2009). In addition, criminologists have argued that besides killings, rapes, and homicides, it is an accepted fact that abolishment of death penalty has been an encouraging factor for the criminals to continue their offending cycle. In the year 2009, Home Office (2010) specified that more than fifty murderers who got out after serving their life sentences soon confronted conviction in another case, as prison has not been effective in improving lives of these offenders, it rather results in leaving detrimental effects on their lives that turn them into professional killers and offenders. Besides factual reasons for reintroducing death penalty in the United Kingdom, various other factors advocate the proposal of its reintroduction. In brief, the most significant benefit of considering capital punishment for penalise criminals is the permanent and confirmed removal of most evil criminals and unwanted members from the society, whereas, even life serving sentences do not eliminate the chances of further criminal acts from prisoners in the future that is observable from the abovementioned statistical records (Stevens, pp. 289, 2009). In this regard, death penalty eliminates any probability of further crimes, as well as gets rid of any chances of prisoners escaping away from the authorities that put lives of many innocent citizens at risk. In addition to quick exclusion, capital punishment can be very efficient in creating a healthier, educated, and law-abiding community in the future. In other words, it is observation (Home Office, 2010) that the UK government puts millions of dollars on the construction of high-security prisoners for criminals; however, this amount can provide efficient outcomes upon its utilisation on youth, health, education, social welfare, poor, etc. Although many adversaries of the capital punishment argue over the higher costs of capital punishment, as compared with life-serving sentences in prison, however, such fact applies only in the United States in which, a death row takes approximately twelve years due to repetitive appeals and postponements of courts. On the other hand, the UK’s criminal justice is far stricter than the US in terms of court processes, and used to take approximately eight weeks for similar processes in the UK before the abolishment. From this comparison, reintroduction of the death penalty will be beneficial from the financial perspective as well. Lastly, deterrence is another significant trait of the death penalty that distinguishes it from other alternatives for punishing criminals. In particular, deterrence is one of the attributes of capital punishment that are acceptable by the adversaries (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, pp. 29-34, 2008) of this notion. Experts (BBC News, 2005) have indicated that one death penalty for a criminal is more than enough in preventing fresh offenders in continuing their offending cycle, or effective in even avoiding them to plan for such crimes. Although justification is not possible factually, however, countries that use death penalty such as Singapore have very less rate of serious crimes. At the same time, law enforcement agencies and authorities of the criminal justice system will have the shared responsibility of carrying out the investigation procedures and court processes in a sincere and balanced manner that may prevent any innocent live from getting into criminal entrapment. Finally, I would like to thank your reputable newspaper for considering my intention of reintroducing death penalty in the United Kingdom that will be an efficient tool of creating a healthier, safer, and lawful community in the region. It is anticipation that concerned authorities will deem this perspective important, and will take essential steps to reintroduce capital punishment in our criminal justice system. Thanking You XYZ References BBC News. (2005). “Head to Head: Death Penalty.” BBC News. Retrieved on February 14, 2010: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4458032.stm Foreign and Commonwealth Office. (2008). Human Rights Annual Report 2007. The Stationery Office. Hodgkinson, Peter & Schabas, William. (2004). Capital punishment: strategies for abolition. Cambridge University Press. Home Office. (2010). “Crimes and Victims.” Home Office. Retrieved on February 14, 2010: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/index.html Prejean, Helen, (2006). The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions. SCM-Canterbury Press Ltd. Stevens, Dennis J. (2009). Media and Criminal Justice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More