CONVERSATION AND

COMPOSITION IN ENGLISH
1 SEMESTER 2020
FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES
DEPARTAMENTO DE LENGUAS
LAURA CAMILA FINDLAY MENDOZA

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, A SETBACK OR PROGRESS IN OUR SOCIETY?

Death penalty is one of the oldest punishments known in the history; it has been a

controversial issue due to the amount of judicial and social repercussions around the world.

There is an increase in several countries that practice the death penalty in its great majority:

Asia and the Middle East, In America, The United States is one of the countries with the

most executions carried under this law. On the other hand, some Latin countries continue

with the capital punishment but with the difference that this law has diminished

considerably. Capital punishment considered as cruel in some cases and also as a good

choice contains benefits and disadvantages among different points of views.

In some countries, some benefits have been found over the death sentences. From a

historical point of departure, to date, 108 states have abolished the death penalty. However,

it continues to be applied in countries such as China where there are fifty five misconducts

that are condemned with the death penalty. A study shows that according to confirmed

numbers, the rate of executions in China is higher than in the United States and Pakistan,

although Iran executes more prisoners. The number of executions has been increasing; for

this Asian country, behaviour is important for its social development. The capital

punishment helps to keep the order through a strategy of intimidating society so that crimes

are not committed; consequently, the number of wrongdoings is very low, a big percentage

of Chinese people do not kill or steal, they are aware of their destiny. Another factor that
justifies the death penalty is that it would avoid a huge public expense, in China it is taken

into account that for a state it is more economical to apply the lethal injection to a murderer

than to maintain them for a lifetime in jail. To sum, some countries have found the death

sentence as a solution and improvement of social order having good results.

On the other face of the coin, In Colombia it has been very difficult to implement

this law due to state and social troubles. Although the issue of the death penalty has been

debated, especially those who have suffered the consequences, there is a law that explicitly

prohibits capital punishment because in this country, the judicial system that applies the law

is not effective and there could be wrong acts to whom receives the punishment. For

instance: Colombian`s reports show that twelve percent of people accused as guilty were

absolved, justice made some mistake in the legal process resulting in thousands of innocent

people paying some punishment unfairly. If capital punishment were to become a reality in

a country with so many legal inconsistencies in the courts, it could run the risk of

committing some mistake with an innocent prisoner. For instance: Carlos Lleras de la

Fuente, a Colombian politician, capital punishment would extend to terrorism and the

killing of members of the public force, for him it would have an exemplary character: the

sentence would be executed in public. The Colombians, then, would revive an image they

saw for the last time in 1910. He said the following: “Aim, fire In Colombia, the death

penalty entered and left the nineteenth century as Pedro for his home. The mobiles, on the

contrary, were constant: almost always political”[ CITATION ELT18 \l 9226 ] . Another point is

that Colombia has a state linked to the religious system; consequently, there are followers

and religious leaders who expose that it is a sin to take someone's life and this would be

condemned as a violation of the right to life. These statements are taken seriously for the
state; this Latin American country is very Catholic and devoted to the laws of god. In brief,

Colombia has many social and state implications that prevent it from studying the proposal

of the death penalty as a solution in social issues of each country.

In sum, being the death penalty one of the most studied punishments by the

countries of the world, it is still a controversial issue because it is making a determination

about someone's life; On the one hand, voters in favour of this penalty understand that the

criminals on death row have been convicted of the most heinous crimes. These voters are

aware that prisoners sentenced to this penalty do not deserve anything less than justice. On

the other hand, some countries conclude that the death penalty system is cruel and unfair; in

addition, the death penalty is morally, socially and politically wrong. Morally, killing is

wrong. Killing on behalf of a state is wrong as well; therefore, it is very difficult to take a

position in this situation because there are many positive factors for some people and

negative for many others.

REFERENCES:

TIEMPO, E. (2018). PENA DE MUERTE . EL TIEMPO.

BBC, ETHICS, (2015). ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT