Sunday, May 2, 2010

05.02.10 Capital Punishment

The capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is seemingly the worst punishment a person could get. It has been held in almost all parts of the world, causing debates from all over the world on whether or not this cruel and controversial punishment should be continued or not. People argue that it is immoral and cruel to execute people, but some people argue that the criminals need a proper punishment. Both opinions seem to have their own arguments that sound very true, but since the two opinions are completely opposite, the debate is tense.
I was not sure what my opinion on the death penalty is for a while, but after watching a movie about a death-row convict who has been in the prison for false charge, my opinion went against the capital punishment. The man waits endlessly for the day of his execution, and does not argue for his innocence because he feels like his life is not worth living. But when he meets a person who makes him want to continue living, unfortunately he has no other choice to die. His voice murmuring “I am scared.. I am scared..” on the way to his execution won’t leave my head. The death penalty seemed like the worst punishment a human can possibly give and also the most unnecessarily cruelest. But after hearing about a psychopath who killed more than ten innocent people for no reason, I thought to myself unconsciously that that kind of man should get a proper punishment of death. But then, the killer dying will do nothing to the family of the victims. Thinking death will be a proper punishment is very wrong, but there seems to be no punishment to fit the criminal act of killing tens of people.
What is thought to be a proper punishment can not exist. People give punishments in order to keep people from committing crimes over and over, rather than paying for what they have done. A person who killed a family and stole their money won’t bring back the dead family back alive by dying. But in order to keep these situations from happening, we are trying to scare the people from doing so by showing the result of death from their not so smart action. Death is the worst and the scariest punishment we believe to be but I am not sure if it is the best choice. People killing others, whatever reason it is, does not seem right to me. We scorn at the scene of animals killing each other in order to survive, but what difference is there between them and us if we kill each other as well. We punish people when they kill other human being, but the punishment they get is also death. It seems ironic and unfitting. There has to be some other humane way to punish the criminal and keep people scared to commit such crime.
Currently most countries have either banned the capital punishment or have not held an execution for a while. There needs to be a punishment that would not involve loosing people’s lives but will serve well for the crime they have committed.

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