Commentary: The death sentence can never be justified on either moral or practical grounds. How far do you agree with this?

In tackling this question, it is vital to have a strong stand and to provide appropriate examples to justify our stand. The explanation of key words such as death sentence should also be explained with illustration of when it is issued. This would give a rough idea to the readers of the seriousness of issuing death sentence.

The author initially states that death sentence is justifiable on a practical basis but later on she says it is not justifiable. Although it seems contradicting, it shows how death sentence can and cannot be justified on a practical basis under various circumstances. Thus the issue of implementing death sentence is analysed well with examples. On dealing with what is meant by “justified” it is important to quote some issues to illustrate during when it can be justified and/or otherwise. For example, the death sentence can be justified if it can be a successful deterrent measure. However, it must be taken into account that a person planning to murder someone can be stopped by other things such as his values and conscience other than the fear of being hanged which is instilled by the death sentence. This is can be clearly seen from the author’s argument that crime rates have fluctuated greatly with and without the ban of death sentence.

Some people consider the death penalty unfair because it lacks uniformity in its implementation as said by the author. For example, killing someone may result in hanging of the guilty in Arab countries but for the same crime the punishment maybe less severe in more liberal countries like America. Furthermore, people who want revenge may support the implementation of death penalty. They might argue that it’s an eye for an eye. So there is nothing morally wrong in issuing death sentence. Like the author, it can be rebutted that we have no right to kill anyone let alone do it in the name of Law and that we have to respect basic human rights and respect life. This also depends on the type of crime and the criminal in concern. For example, if it is a hard core criminal who refuses to change and continues on with his atrocious behavior, then there is no point in letting him loose again by imprisoning him months or years. It is better to hang him to ensure the safety of others. Furthermore, if such hard core criminals are not punished severely it would just encourage low rated criminals to continue committing crimes.

I cannot agree that death penalty is justified on practical basis because it does not result in the society seeing lesser crime rates as argued by the author. This is because more than 80% of the countries have banned capital punishment like death penalty because it seems not to be working. Even in countries like Iraq where death sentence was re-implemented again, the crime rates have been increasing rather than diminishing clearly indicating that death sentence is NOT a successful deterrent measure.

Thus, death penalty is justified and not justified on practical and moral grounds depending on the circumstance.

Link :
http://sultanasperspectives.blogspot.com/