Should capital punishment be abolished?

by R.R.S. Perera

Recently, crimes such as murder, rape, drug trafficking, child abuse and torture have become a way of life. Newspapers and the electronic media give much publicity to them. This has led to a major debate whether to reintroduce the death penalty.

Although capital punishment has not been carried out recently in Sri Lanka, some have proposed to reactivate it to minimise the crime rate.

The reasons for this are the occurrence of grave crimes on a regular basis. On the other hand, some argue against the capital punishment.

Capital punishment is meted out to offenders of serious crimes. Those who are in favour of the capital punishment argue that if someone has committed a serious crime, he should receive the death penalty. They think that by doing so, others in society would refrain from committing such crimes. This in turn would reduce the crime rate in society.

No guarantee

If a criminal is jailed, there is no guarantee that he would refrain from committing crimes again. Sometimes he would continue to commit the same crime after being released from prison.

Therefore, giving him the capital punishment would make sure that society is free from such criminals.

Some believe that instead of giving the life imprisonment for the convict, it is better to kill him. Otherwise he has to live a futile life in the prison. Further, some argue that imprisoning someone is more expensive than executing him.

Some people believe that a person who has taken the life of another person does not have a right to live.

Therefore, they suggest that the death penalty is the only suitable punishment to give the same pain to the criminal as suffered by the victim at the crime.

It is also important to safeguard the prison inmates and guards as people who commit crimes are believed to have a violent personality. Therefore, they may attack any one during their imprisonment. These reasons support the continuation of the death penalty.

On the contrary, some argue against the capital punishment. Everyone thinks human life is valuable. Therefore, some believe that the value of the offender's life cannot be destroyed by the offender's bad conduct of killing someone.

The right to live is a basic human right. If the offenders who commit murders received the death penalty, that right would be violated.

On some occasions the execution of the innocent would happen due to miscarriage of justice.

Implementing capital punishment sometimes leads to a social issue. If the convict is the householder or the sole bread winner of a family, the dependent would suffer a lot.

They lose love and protection that they are receiving. Therefore, they tend to stat hating society.

Though the implementing the capital punishment is debatable, the Buddhist philosophy does not endorse taking away of somebody's life.

In fact, the first precept is to refrain from killing. The Buddha preached us to spread compassion and loving kindness to everybody. Rehabilitating of an offender is a good alternative to the death penalty. Instead of being executed, the offender can be rehabilitated by improving his talents and skills.

On the other hand, steps should be taken to develop their spiritual life. This will enable to reform them.

The capital punishment is not a deterrent punishment. Therefore, crimes cannot be fully stopped by giving the death sentence.

Serious crimes

Although the capital punishment is carried out in some countries as a punishment for serious crimes, such countries have failed to prevent those crimes. Sometimes an innocent person might be convicted due to manipulated evidence.

Therefore, the capital punishment is not a solution for the crimes. There is a saying that prevention is better than cure. So I am of the view that to usher in a peaceful society, good governance and justice are very much essential.

Then there would be no necessity to discuss the capital punishment.