Many of us will never forget the day before New Year’s Day, 2007. On the 31st of December 2006, when thousands of American people turned on their TVs hoping to see entertaining programs and pleasurable news, they could observe something deeply shocking and overwhelming.
On that day, a poor-quality recording of the execution of a former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was offered to the nation instead of expected New Year entertainment and fun. Undoubtedly, that was an unbelievable and unprecedented situation, with its cruelty and shamelessness.“Almighty” Saddam was killed in the same way as he used to destroy his opponents. I do not think that he killed more innocent people than Mao, Lenin or other historical tyrants, who are immortalized in people’s minds, did. Success is never blamed, but former Iraqi dictator proved to be a loser, that’s why he was so cruelly executed. That nasty recording had nothing to do neither with art nor journalism, and that horrible execution had nothing to do with justice.
It demonstrated nothing else but an awful amoral spectacle.Undoubtedly, the concept of capital punishment is among the most controversial and arguable public issues in the United States, along with the problems of gun control, euthanasia and some other ones. Many people suppose that the death penalty is a cynic and brutal way to destroy human beings. At the same time, the others find capital punishment justifiable and call it the best way to punish the worst offenders and criminals, as well as to give a perfect warning to the other potentials. There are 68 countries in the world, which retain the right to practice capital punishment.Unfortunately, the United States belong to those countries, though some states, including Massachusetts, Iowa, Alaska, North Dakota, Michigan, and District of Columbia have abolished any type of executions.
Capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976, and since those times more than 1,100 people were put to death (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007). Our government has a number of different tools for execution, which include electric chairs, gallows, as well as lethal injections.According to Death Penalty Statistic, which is regularly publicized by the Department of Justice of the U. S. , in 2006 53 convicted criminals were put to death by execution in our country. This number is 7 people fewer than the one in 2005.
Statistical researches demonstrate some steady decrease in the amount of the American citizens sent to execution within some last years, after the peak in the year 2002, when 71 people were executed in the United States (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007). It is possible to say that such punishment rate is very high. Robert Grant in his work, which attempts to understand the debate over capital punishment, addresses to the words of Justice William J.Brennan, who says that "When a country of over 200 million people inflicts an unusually severe punishment no more than 50 times a year, the inference is strong that the punishment is not being regularly and fairly applied.
" (Grant, 2004) Unfortunately, many people believe that there is nothing wrong about capital punishment. They think that sentencing to death is a good tool to serve social justice and safety of the American people. They consider it to be a powerful and fair instrument of punishing the worst criminals for the hardest criminal offences, like homicides or mass murders, etc.They support the idea that the punishment must be worth the crime. Therefore, they claim that such criminals as killers, mass murderers, assassins and other felons, who committed especially brutal criminal offences, must be executed fairly. The death penalty supporters argue that in case, if capital punishment is banned in the U.
S. , it may seem that our justice system is more concerned about the criminals, not the victims, because there is no chance for a felon to pay for his crimes with the highest price of his life.They also consider that transparent and reasonable policy of execution is healthy for our society, and means no aggression, sadism or mistreatment. They claim that the threat of being sentenced to death has positive influence on crime rates and perfectly serves for peace and safety of the people of our country.
Many Americans insist on the opinion that capital punishment is not something that promotes brutality, violence, bloodshed, or makes our society less civilized and humane.As the recent researches and studies found out, many Americans suppose that our government legalized capital punishment and practices it, because the majority of the citizens widely support and agree with such governmental policy. In real, it is absolutely wrong, and the latest statistic studies indicate increasing tendency to oppose the death penalty. In the end of 2005, the results of a Zogby poll were publicized in our country, which demonstrated that public support of capital punishment had dropped down to 48 % in 2005 from 68 % in 2001 (Christian Century).I strongly disagree with the concept of capital punishment, and I consider the death penalty to be a true act of violence, which causes terrible and only destructive effects on our society. Bryan Stevenson describes capital punishment as one of the most brutal and cruel historical traditions, which is still being kept in the United States: “The death penalty is a direct descendant of the darkest aspects of American history—slavery, lynching, racial oppression, and perfunctory capital trials known as “legal lynchings” (Bedau & Cassell, 2004, p.
152).Being a strong opponent of the death penalty, I have to say that, first of all, execution violates basic and one of the most principle rights of people, the right to live. This right is absolutely sacred, and it is not only something, which is protected by our legislation and American constitution, but it is something given by God. Many of us should know that the 8th Amendment to our Constitution does not allow “cruel and unusual punishments”, and there is no doubt that the death penalty is one of the cruelest ways to punish a person.Besides, I suppose that it is a real shame and disgrace to practice capital punishment in a Christian society. Everybody knows that the concept of Christianity, including especially its early teachings, is strictly against of such type of punishment.
Certainly, the same can be said about Islam and many other religious beliefs. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D. C. expresses his position as to the death penalty the following way: "We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life. " (Christian Century) There are other religious issues, which put us to opposition of capital punishment.
Christian philosophy promotes the idea that every one of us came to this world for some purpose. In other words, God has sent us here with some missions, which we need to fulfill. The death penalty means unnatural death, which makes it impossible for God’s people to accomplish their mission and, for example, accept full measure of suffering during imprisonment. Therefore, the death penalty falls into a deep controversy with the idea of God.
Besides, we must not forget that those are people, judges and other officials, who are authorized to make decisions about sentencing to death.And it is undisputable, that a human being can’t play the role of God and make decisions about taking life of another human being. In our civilized society, ethical principles hold us from hunting and eating each other, and that’s what makes us different from animals. That is why we need to oppose any form of destroying people, including execution, war or other types of violence. I think that the death penalty is not only a very cruel way to punish a criminal, but it is also pointlessly tough and unfair way to kill a human being.First of all, killing a criminal does not bring his victims back to life.
Second, the death penalty is, actually, an authorized crime, which is done by government. It is absolutely senseless to answer on a crime with a new crime. It could be so much better, for example, to employ criminals into some occupation, allowing them to demonstrate their abilities. Many researches, who support the death penalty, argue that capital punishment is very effective as a deterrence tool.
They consider that fear of being sentenced to death can deter murderers, criminals or potential criminals from killing people.I am sure that, unfortunately, when criminals torture, rape or kill people, they are not afraid and do not even think about the execution or justice. Therefore, capital punishment can not scare anybody, as well as it can not change anything. As an opponent of capital punishment, I can use the issue of deterrence to support my own position. In many situations living life-long imprisonment, which means being lonely, feeling useless and condemned, suffering and waiting for death to come, can be considerably worse, than being sent to Death Row and die.That is why I am absolutely certain that many convicted brutal criminals or felons would rather prefer to be executed, than to remain in prison all the life.
The controversy of the death penalty is also connected with the concept of value of a human life. Supporters of the death penalty usually say that the criminals, who have taken away human lives as the highest value for our society, brutally betrayed this concept. Therefore, they deserve the hardest penalty as people, who do not obey our social rules.As an opponent of capital punishment, I can argue that human life has the highest value, and capital punishment denies its sacredness.
One more major ethical point of the death penalty is the probability of a mistake. There is always a chance that a convicted person was not guilty in the crime or murder. We can see a lot of such situations in the cinema movies or TV programs (for example, in a recent TV-series Prison Break, which caused a lot of public resonance), when innocent people are convicted to death and only a miracle helps them to escape the punishment. Unfortunately, in real life people can not manage to escape execution.
Finally, I have to underline that legalizing capital punishment is one of the most populist solutions, which actually can not solve the problems of our safety. I suppose that our politicians must spend all the efforts to deal with the causes, but not the effects of the problem of high criminal rates in the U. S. The majority of those, who were executed, had problematic childhood, lack of any support or even normal treatment.
Thus, our government has to create proper social programs, and this would be much more helpful and effective for our society, than putting people to death.It is important to understand, that opposing the death penalty does not mean any sympathy or pity for convicted felons or criminal offenders. When I argue against capital punishment, I want to express the idea that everyone deserves forgiveness and must be treated with humanism, no matter what. I believe that even such people as criminals and killers do deserve to be given a chance to reconsider their life concept, to rehabilitate and, maybe, to recognize their guilt. Of course, every person can have own point of view and own position as to this problem.
I strongly believe that the death penalty is not an effective tool to express social concern and protest against brutality of crimes and violence in our country, as well as against increasing global threat of terrorism and aggression. I suppose that we must find alternative and more humane ways to punish the criminals and keep them away from our society. In conclusion, I want to be back to putting to death Saddam Hussein. His execution became a spectacular show, a piece of entertainment, a hymn to human death, and I suppose that it caused even sympathy (which he did not actually deserve) for that brave self-possessed old man in black coat.Human beings were not created to murder and to enjoy the scenes of a murder, but the theatrical picture of the execution of Saddam made it really unforgettable. I guess that it showed how cheap a human life is, and proved again immorality and brutality of capital punishment.
Outline Recent show-off execution of Saddam Hussein became one more reason to understand the cruelty, cynicism and brutality of capital punishment. The U. S. is among the countries, which legally practice the death penalty, but criminal situation still remains terrible and the occurrences of violence and aggression are still quite frequent.This work is an attempt to emphasize destructive sides of the death penalty and its influence on our society.
The author claims that capital punishment violates the right to live and contradicts many teachings of Christianity. In his opinion, a civilized and humane society would not put people to death, giving them a chance to regret and to be forgiven. Finally, there is more effective way to punish convicted criminals, which is life-long imprisonment. The opinions of different researchers and specialists are used in the work to support the position of the author.
