“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” - seems only fair doesn’t it; you take someone’s life, so yours should be taken too.

The death penalty was abolished in Australia in 1973 but exists in 58 countries still to this day, and Australia should be one of them!

Fear = deterrence – and this is exactly what Australia needs to ignite in its people. Fear of going against the law because of the fear of repercussions. If the outcome of murder is not severe or frightening, no one is going to be put off from it hence they will continue to break the law because they’ll get off easy.

Capital punishment deters the present or future criminals from committing. People fear nothing more than death. Therefore, nothing will deter a criminal more than the fear of death. People do fewer crimes or none at all, when they know that the punishment may mean paying for it with their life.

In 2003, Professor Shepherd of economics from Clemson University (in South Carolina America) found that “each execution results, on average, in five fewer murders.” Thus executions deter murder, and murder rates increase substantially during moratoriums.”

Imagine your mum dropped you off at school one day. The bell goes at 3:20 and you go to the pickup area. You’re waiting for 10 minutes thinking, this isn’t like mum; she’s usually on time. Another 10 minutes go by and you become worried, and before you know it, 40 minutes pass. You get a phone call from your aunty saying she is coming to get you instead: she sounds upset and anxious. When you’re aunty arrives she has tears streaming down her face. Your mum was brutally murdered. Earlier that week a convicted serial criminal was let off on parole after facing a 35 year sentence for a previous murder, and went and struck again.

You cannot sit there and tell me that you wouldn’t want her killer dead!

I for one would want to know that the person responsible for my mother no longer being alive, never has the chance of taking another life and putting someone else’s family through the same trauma.

I can’t believe people believe prison is a more effective punishment, compared to execution, when people who are solely out to kill or commit crimes have the opportunity to be released and end up right back where they started. It is so blatantly obvious how useless this method is.

Life imprisonment isn’t secure or permanent: what’s to say they won’t escape from prison. Plus whilst being in prison murderers pose a threat to prison staff and other inmates.

The legal system is meant to protect society, but having these evil people in our prisons only contravenes this.

In Florida alone in 2011/12 , there were 171 completed prison escapes, proving just how easy and common this is.