Since the earliest civilizations, people have been executed for an assortment of crimes. The Babylonians wrote the first ever death penalty laws over 3,700 years ago, and to this day several countries such as China and the United States continue to enforce capital punishment against those proven guilty of murder, treason, espionage and other crimes. Despite its extensive history, the implementation of the death penalty in modern societies raises an underlying question: Is the execution of criminals truly justifiable?

Proponents of capital punishment claim that it dissuades criminals from committing extreme crimes. Potential murderers will be much less inclined to kill for fear of being executed, while criminals with no intent to kill would
When an innocent is killed, there is no way to compensate for their death. You may think that this sort of predicament is a rare occasion, but evidence shows that from 1973 up to now, over 150 of people who were sentenced to death in the United States were exonerated after being tried again. Besides this, there is also the very real possibility of a suspect who is guilty of manslaughter being sentenced for homicide instead.

The usage of the death penalty is often looked down upon because of the suffering it causes the convict. We tend to dehumanize criminals and forget that they too are real people who have the capacity to experience pain, fear and loss. There is no way to know what exactly death feels like, but it's an indisputable fact that the process before an execution can have extreme effects on a prisoner's mental health. How would you feel if you knew you were to be executed in 72 hours time?

Not only do executions affect the convict, but also society as a whole. During the 17th and 18th centuries people became so used to public hangings that eventually they came to enjoy the display. In the civilized world where we currently live, this desensitization towards violence would be a regression towards a less developed