Si Mei Fung Humanity 1 (5/18/2012) First Draft

Contents

A brief background of Capital Punishment

Against Death Penalty

Sustaining Death Penalty

Personal opinions and Conclusion

References

A brief background of Capital Punishment

Capital punishment in Britain, according to Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe (2009) Death penalty formulated in 6th century and this final punishment has conducted by beheading, boiling, alive, hanging and decapitation by machine. Among hanging was the most popular implements of punishment. Because it was the most convenient instrument of torture which can been carried out anywhere and not excessively cruel, especially for the unskilled executioners.

In 930, King Athelstan decreased the age of legal torture from 12 to 16. As it was too cruel to execute children and also there were a significant number of juveniles’ serioursless criminal in that period. The last Death penalty was in 1964 and it was formally abolished on 1965 in the UK and 1973 in the north Ireland.

Rebecca Cafe(2011) claims that there are a statistic to illustrate the people who are in favour of capital punishment from four different parties and researchers, such as Paul Staines (2012), Mori (2010), you government(2010) and the Human Right Act (1998). In generally, it can be seen that the number of people who supported the Capital punishment has decreased and 50% of participants made up the the lowest number sustain for it.

Against Death penalty

There are 5 different sources from St James (2012) article 1, Peake, Alex; Coles, John; Pyatt, Jamie (2011) article 7 , Rebecca Cafe(2011)article 6 and 3,4,8 (BBC). They have combated the Capital Punishment to base on religion’s point of view, human right and values . Northcliffe Electronic Publishing (2012) state that Capital Punishment was not a valid deterrent for the criminals according to the history, thus there is no point to bring it back. In addition, article 3 notes that imprisonment without possibility of parole can replace Capital Punishment. They also pointed out there was very infrequent that people escape from prison and kill again. Therefore, it can be believe that the Death Penalty is unnecessary.

As far as the religion aspect is concerned, article 4 asserts that only GOD should create and destroy life. The faith basis of christianity emphasizes forgiveness and compassion. Article 8 also stresses retribution is totally wrong. For example, the U.S. catholic Conference states that to take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice.

In relation to the equitability and human right, article 8 mentions people may be killed unjustly by the wrong justice system and it also highlights life is valuable and people have their human right to live include murders. In addition, St James (2012) contents that in the UK, people should be seen innocent until proven guilty. They also suppose to be looked after and respected.

In contrast, Peake, Alex; Coles, John; Pyatt, Jamie (2011) argues that some people find Capital Punishment not retribution enough. A father who has lost his daughter by murdering to denounce that the murder should go to the jail (a living hell) rather than suffer the Death Penalty. Article 8 also claims that it connives people have no responsible for their acts.

Regarding the free will and the cost of Death Penalty, Arthur Koestler and Clarence mentioned that people can not behave what they want, thence, they should not be punished. What is more, Capital punishment has amounted a large number of cost. For instance, in New York, about 23 million dollars was been spend in 1995.

In a short, it can be seen that Capital Punishment is not an essential, humane and effective method to penalize the criminals.

Sustaining Death Penalty

Since Capital Punishment was abolished in 1964, the shout of justice and the death number of innocent have