Buy essay on Capital punishment

Capital punishment is one of the sharpest themes of discussions among politicians, lawyers, judges and common people in many countries among the world. Having long history and deep roots in mentality and traditions of nations the death as an instrument of justice now comes to contradiction with the tendencies of humanism and liberty. Is it worthy to the modern humans to kill each other in any way? Is it good to leave one alive after he has murdered a number of people? These are the questions dividing people into two sides – pro and contra capital punishment.
My own position is that capital punishment must remain a necessary part of criminal law. The strongest argument for the death penalty is that the justice must prescript the punishment equal to crime. This is normal that one who’s stolen 10 dollars receives more term in prison than another one who’s stolen only 1 dollar. The equal punishment for the homicide is death. To let the victim’s relatives live and realize that the killer of their son/sister/brother etc. lives, walks and breathes is much less humanely then to keep the principle of equality and let the killer die.
This argument is closely connected with the next one. If we let the killer live we keep him imprisoned we fed him, dress him, keep huge personnel (doctors, cookers, security, state departments etc.) to serve him. And all this is done at the expenses of the taxes paid by his victims’ relatives! Instead of being satisfied by the death of the killer they have to pay through all his life to let him live. That’s why even from economical point of view the death penalty is much more acceptable. Typically, the cost of imprisoning someone for life is much more expensive than executing that same person.
Capital punishment is justified with the argument that when we execute convicted murderers, we have a chance to deter would-be murderers from making crime. “Deterrence seems most effective if the punishment happens soon after the crime – to make an analogy, a child learns not to put their finger in the fire, because the consequence is instant pain” (Warren, 42). Gould B. Jon writes that the deterrence effect is hard to be proved because in most countries in which it is in practice the number of people really executed per year (as compared to those who is sentenced to death) is as a rule a very small proportion (12). He notes that in those countries which almost always implement death sentences, serious crimes are made less (14). “The death penalty is much more likely to be a deterrent where the crime requires planning and the potential criminal has time to think about the possible consequences,” – Costanzo writes. – “Where the crime is committed in the heat of the moment there is no likelihood that any punishment will act as a deterrent” (32). If one does this in a sober mind and sensible memory, knowing that the law will require his own death after this we can take this as his conscious choice. So if he sees this possible he can do it again. There are no doubts that those who are executed are not able to commit crimes in future. So this way we can prevent re-offending.
People who don’t support the capital punishment argue that this is not worthy to modern humanity to support death in any form. They say that the principle “eye for an eye” was normal for our dark past but not today. When killing the murderer we seem not better than he, because it’s not equal punishment, but equal crime. To be short the first argument is humane. The second is that witnesses, jurors and judges can all make mistakes. So it is possible that innocent people will be executed. “Where capital punishment is used such mistakes cannot be put right” (Jon, 20). The third argument is that by killing the murderer we do not remove the economic and social conditions that led to this crime.
Certainly these arguments are strong enough to be considered. But nevertheless they don’t prove that capital punishment is wrong. We must keep the practical reasons more than ideas of humanism and forgiveness, because we live in the world of reality, not ideas; the idea of humane is far not able to feed homeless people, but the money saved by executing murderer can do this. If we reject death penalty because of possible mistakes we must refuse from all our judicial system as it often appears wrong. The same to the third argument contra: while imprisoning people we neither solve any social problems.
I remain sure that capital punishment is needed in democratic society. The modern trends show that in Europe and America death penalty becomes less and less widespread. I don’t think that the states that rejected capital punishment will really improve the criminal situation. Even in these states this issue still remains discussable and the time may come when the death penalty will be in practice there again.

Works cited
Costanzo, Mark. Just revenge: costs and consequences of the death penalty. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Warren R., and Drizin S., ed. True Stories of False Confessions. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2009.
Jon, Gould B. The Innocence Commission: Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Restoring the Criminal Justice System. New York: NYU Press, 2008.