Is Death Penalty

Effective?

Microsoft Office User

Category B
Lines: 44

Death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is a government sanctioned practice

whereby a person is put to death by the state for a crime that he/she may have committed. 1
There are various forms of capital punishments prevailing around the world. These include
hanging, firing squad, lethal injection, gas chamber, electrocution among others.

Now for the question at hand, “Is Death Penalty Effective?”. In my opinion death penalty is
effective to some extent. It does not allow the criminals of the society to commit more crimes
and thus ends their reign of terror. If death penalty was not present, the criminals would
commit crimes without any fear. If they were ever arrested, they would stay in prison for a
few days and then when released would again commit crimes.

Today, criminals think twice before committing a crime as they are aware that they may be
given a death penalty for their crimes. The fear of death has made reduced the number of
crimes being committed.

But, is the practice of hanging a person always a right choice? Is death penalty really 100%
effective? The answers to these questions according to me is a big ‘no’. It is not a humane
way. The practice of awarding death penalty is a very old practice in many countries like
India. The Rajas and Nawabs of India too awarded death penalties to the wrongdoers of their
respective kingdoms. But this practice of awarding death sentences also led to the downfall of
many such kingdoms.

There have been many arguments in various courts around the world, asking the governments
to consider more humane ways to deal with criminals. Some suggestion includes awarding to
life sentences to criminals rather than awarding them death sentences. There have also been
instances where the family members of a convict have landed into the world of crime because
of the feeling that their family members were wrongly convicted and executed. This, in turn,
has also lead to increase in crime rates.

So, what is the remedy. Should death penalties be completely eliminated from the world?
Well, there is no simple answer to this question. It is true that death penalty is not a plausible
method to stop crime. But, it is equally true that the fear of death penalties has also reduced
crime rates in many countries. So here is what my opinion is; death penalty should be
awarded only in the most severe cases and that to after it has been confirmed that the person
charged is actually the convict. There have been various cases of mistaken identities where
people were executed by the state, only to later learn that these people were innocent without
any fault. So, what would the officials say to the families of these innocent people who were
executed? They just apologize saying that it was all a “mistake”. But does this return their
loved ones back to them?
So, I conclude by saying that death penalties are not as efficient as we consider them to be.

1
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment