The death penalty, capital punishment, has been a very controversial issue for many centuries, but regarded as a necessary deterrent to serious crimes and a way to give a greater sense of safety to the community from dangerous criminals. Death sentences are usually issued to respondents who have been found guilty of a crime, such as murder, treason, espionage, genocide, and murder related to rape. The death penalty has many moral, ethical, and religious perspectives.
Nevertheless, it is not an easy decision to support the death penalty as an effective option to punish the guilty criminal.
Some countries, including China, the USA, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, are in favor of the death penalty as an option, while others are opponents of the death penalty, such as Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, Western Europe, Central and South America.
Most nations in Africa have abolished the death penalty. This paper examines the immorality of the death penalty and claims it should be abolished because it violates the constitutional right of human beings, wastes financial and prison resources, discriminates against minorities and the poor, and finally, guilty murderers have the potential to change and rejoin society with the help of rehabilitation.
Before I start to argue and examine the violation of capital punishment, I would like to present two terms: abolitionists and retentionists. The first means people who are against capital punishment and believe that the death penalty is never justified. The latter term defines people who are in favour of retaining the death penalty as part of a legal system, including legal punishment when sometimes capital punishment is warranted. Both abolitionists and retentionists are likely to agree that a more appropriate punishment is a justifiable action of society.
Different methods of capital punishment involve hanging, burning, the use of lethal injection, electrocution, and the gas chamber the list can be continued. 1 Every form of execution Page | 3 causes the defendant suffering, but some methods of execution cause less severe pain. These methods can cause physical and mental pain that the person suffers in the time remaining before the execution.
The first argument I would like to present is that the death penalty would violate human rights and human dignity. The Italian politician, Cesare Beccaria, argued that "the state cannot have the right to take away the life of its citizens, because these rights in relation to him are based on a social contract, and it cannot be assumed that the individual has transferred the right to life to the state and consented to be executed." 2 The idea of a right to life is a necessity for individuals who are found guilty of serious crimes and have an opportunity to get fair punishment, rather than being executed.
Many abolitionists argue that capital punishment is illegal because it violates the right to life, which is important for...
