Death Penalty Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Death Penalty - Term Paper Example It was mostly used in the ancient times, although many countries still use capital punishment. It has not yet been proved whether administering death penalty is effective in deterring crime (Beck et al 2007 p. 66). There are many reasons why death penalty needs to be abolished. This paper is a critical evaluation of these grounds. Capital punishment does not deter crime where it does not take time to plan it. This is because for a crime that does not take some time for the criminal to plan the offence, considerations about the consequences of committing it are usually absent. It is therefore not likely to prevent such a person from engaging in crime. According to Charlie (2007 p. 68), â€Å"the criminal will most probably act upon the prevailing circumstances†. Crimes such as murder committed under such situations should not be subjected to capital punishment if it is meant to prevent people from committing such crimes. Lack of certainty that an individual is actually the one who committed a crime is usually a problem in many criminal justice systems. More often than not, people are punished because of crimes that they never committed. A good example is the case of many death row suspects who have been freed after the realization of their innocence. This means that many innocent people have been executed because they can not proof their innocence. The irreversibility of punishment through death becomes very painful especially if it turns out to have been meted out on a person due to improper criminal justice systems. At times a person may be executed by mistake, which becomes problematic when the real offenders are known (Michael and Clarissa 2006 p. 85) The feelings of desertion, fear and regret cause a lot of trauma and can have dire consequences on the relatives of the convict. In a religious point of view, it is apparent that doing something wrong to counter a crime does not