Capital
Punishment – An Essay
Capital Punishment is when someone is sentenced to death for a crime
they have committed. Though in most countries Capital Punishment is banned, in
India, it is actually legal. The following is a quote I agree with :
“As if one
crime of such nature, done by a single man, acting individually, can be
expiated by a similar crime done by all men”.
This means, by killing someone by means of capital
punishment, even though it has been decided by a group of men in a jury, will
not make the crime already committed disappear. My first point is this, that
crime committed has already been done. Killing the person responsible does not
change anything.
Secondly, revenge should not be the aim of punishment. It should be
reformation. Let me tell you a true story to prove my point. There was a man
called Remi George in Kerala. He had a habit of using drugs with his friends.
To buy the drugs they used to steal money. Once he and his friends robbed and
killed an old couple who looked on him as their son. They were caught by the
police and put in jail. They were sentenced to life imprisonment by the court.
During his time in jail, he was reformed. After fourteen years, when he came
out of prison, he was a changed man. Now he runs an orphanage for prisoners’
children in Bangalore. He is saving so many children from drugs and going on
the wrong path. He is now a role model to many.
People do argue that capital punishment will act as a deterrent to other
criminals. But it does not seem to have worked that way at all. The lowest
crime rates are seen in countries like Cyprus, Denmark and Iceland. Denmark has
a murder rate of 0.1 per hundred thousand. India has a rate of murder at 2.81
per hundred thousand. Yet in Denmark, Cyprus and Iceland as well as all
European countries, Capital Punishment is banned. So if capital punishment
really does lower crime rates, why is it that India still has a higher crime
rate than these countries? In Iceland, there are only around 200 prisoners in
the whole country! This shows that capital punishment does not bring about any
benefits at all.
Most criminals come from broken families. So we have to understand first
the social issues that make someone a criminal and address that to bring the
crime rate down.
I will now conclude my essay on capital punishment. I hope I have made
you think about why capital punishment is wrong. It is a cruel act that does
not give a person a second chance. It is time this law is abolished in India.
Let me leave you with another quote by the famous French philosopher, Albert
Camus :
“Capital Punishment is the most premeditated of
murders”.
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