The most severe of all sentences, known as the death penalty, capital punishment is the most severe form of corporal punishment as it is requires law enforcement officers to kill the offender. It has been banned in many countries, in the United States, an earlier move to eliminate capital punishment has now been reversed and more and more states are resorting to capital punishment for serious offenses such as murder. An Eye for and eye, a life for a life, who has never heard of the famous lex talionis? We use it in reference to burglary, adultery, love and many other situations. However, some people use it on a different level, some people use it in reference to death. One steals from those who have stolen from him, one wrongs those who have wronged him, but do we really have the right to kill those who have killed. Today, there is a big controve
There are four major issues in the capital punishment debate, the first being deterrence. A major purpose of criminal punishment is to deter future criminal conduct. The deterrence theory suggests that a rational person will avoid criminal behavior if the severity of the punishment outweigh the benefits of the illegal conduct. It is believed that fear of death deters people from committing crimes. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives was at stake. That if attached to certain crimes, the penalty of death exerts a positive moral influence by placing a stigma on certain crimes like manslaughter, resulting in attitudes of disgust and horror to such acts. (Bender, 1985, 11)
Use of the death penalty has declined throughout the industrial Western World since the 19th century. In 1972, movement
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