Death penalty is not a deterrent, it is a murder.
The implementation of law must be followed up by an efficient punishment system. The purpose of that is not just for bringing the criminals to justice but also, to act as a deterrent so that others would not follow their footstep. Extreme punishments aim at maximising this purpose and include capital punishments which are only used when criminals attempted murder, treason or other serious crimes involving the welfare of the victim. Example includes hanging, lethal injection, electric chair and gas chamber. However, are these extreme punishments lawfully justified? Does it make sense to simply punish criminals with equal brutality and cruelty and deny them the right of living? The existence of such harsh punishments had started a series of disputes that question the liability for its use.
Firstly, although the death penalty might not be doing justice to the criminal, stripping him of the right to live, it is certainly doing so for the victim's family. Who else would be able to understand the feeling of losing someone unless they are the people closest to that person. Who would answer for the emotional scar left on the victim's family and bear the psychological aftermath. Only by convicting the criminal to the death penalty would the family's suffering be alleviated. Furthermore, death penalty also serves a much more important function, that is to deter further identical cases from happening. Seeing what other criminals may define as a martyr falling to the hands of the law would certainly hinder them from committing the same crimes. Potential criminals knowing how the law would deal with them if they do commit a serious crime would also consider their next step.
When a criminal is trialed for court, it would usually take the court a long period of time before a death row is ordered and during this long period, the criminal would be placed inside a cell. Inside the cell, all his daily necessities would be catered for, such as food and proper sanitation and the criminal continue to live, isolated from the outside world which is often a harsh stressful place to be in. People argue that the criminal is living on the taxpayers money and hence, oppose the death penalty. In addition, the way death penalties are carried out are often gruesome. These methods not only cause death but also inflict an unbearable amount of pain onto the convicts before dying. For example, the electric chair fires kilo volts into the convict; the power of it almost identical to that of lightning. Convict ends up dying with blood spilling out of his mouth and eyes pop out. Another example is in Florida, USA in 2006 whereby a lethal injection gone wrong. Angel Nieves Diaz endured 30 plus minutes of suffering before dying instead of the usual 15 minutes. He also endured another doze of fatal chemicals during his wait for death. People believe that even as law offenders, they still deserve the right to die in grace. Moreover, there are often cases whereby there are miscarriages of justice and innocent suspects are trialed to death. The death penalty is an irreversible process and as the saying goes "risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one". Who would bear the agony and sorrow of the death innocents' families? Lighter methods like rehabilitation that give convicts a second chance are also more favoured as people become more educated.
In conclusion, I believe that death penalty should be retained as it do serve as a major stop sign to potential criminals. However, perhaps the methods of death conviction should be reconsidered such that it would end the criminals' lives almost instantaneously instead of putting them through the unnecessary suffering when there is not enough time for regrets, not say repentance.
