Phuthita Dokput

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Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?

“Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” There has

been a long lasting debate on whether the death penalty is effective, although the trend of capital

punishment abolition is noticeable after WWII (McGann, 2012). Many death penalty supporters

would agree that execution can deter crimes because the criminal would consider the sanction

before breaking the law. However, death sentence is likely to be defective, since it is costly and time

consuming, can result in mistakes and involves inhumane treatment of the convicted.

The procedure of capital punishment requires tremendous amount of work, co-operating

with lawyers, investigators and judges, since death sentence is highly sensitive the judgement must

be conscientious. The case of Askari Muhammed who was sentenced death can be an example of

how it takes half a lifetime for the legal system to conclude the case since it took 39 years to

eventually execute the criminal. Such a period puts the victims’ families through countless

encounters about the crime. Until then, the murderer will finally be getting what he deserves but the

families of the victims will only get “the horrific memories that haunt him day and

night” (Friedman, 2014). Not only that it is time consuming, it also charges the state huge amount

of money. A study by Duke University professor Philip J. Cook illustrated that North Carolina could

cut $11 million per year off the budget by abolishing capital punishment. Money saved from this

could be used in other useful purposes such as improving the law enforcement system, and funding

police to arrest wrongdoers who escape the punishment through loopholes in laws. All in all, the

death penalty is not effective in the way that it wastes a lot of time and money.

Some people believe capital punishment gives criminals what they deserve since they had

no mercy on the victims they should not be treated with mercy. However, killing the convicted

cannot bring the victims back and, importantly, it can be fallible and mistakenly take innocent lives.

A research by Samuel Gross (2014) reveals that more than 4.1 percent of those under death sentence
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are innocent, which means some innocent defendants were either exonerated or, unfortunately,

executed. For instance, Henry McCollum, accused of raping and murdering a 11-year-old girl, was

finally released after spending three decades on death row since the DNA proved his innocence. It is

reported that, the trial was done without forensic evidence and McCollum was coerced to confess.

(Stubbs, 2014) Although he was not executed, he had lost thirty years of his life to the punishment

of the crime he never committed. Execution is irreversible, and false conviction is as terrible, since

no responsibility is taken for the injustice prisoners experienced. Therefore, to save innocent lives

from botched conviction, capital punishment should be avoided.

Although death penalty may seem to be less harsh than a life sentence without parole, the

convicted prisoners on death row are treated degradingly. According to Amnesty International

(1995), during imprisonment, prisoners under death sentence in Japan are restricted from the

contact with the outside world. Mostly, those convicted with finalised sentences are not allowed to

receive any letter from their friends and only allowed to meet close family members. The

government justified this regulation that it keeps prisoners in stable emotion, however some believe

it is done to keep them quiet. Moreover, there are rules that apply to almost every aspect of living.

For example, prisoners are not allowed to walk freely, they must sit in the centre of the cell and only

three sitting positions are allowed. In Thailand (International Federation for Human Rights, 2005),

the convicted are chained 24 hours a day, which obviously violates “The UN Body of Principles for

the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment”. Therefore, the

unreasonably harsh treatment of prisoners under death penalty is another reason why it should be

ended.

In conclusion, the abolition of capital punishment should be encouraged and considered in

many countries throughout the world since it costs a lot of money and time, resulting in affecting

the victims’ families and wasting the budget that could be use to improve society. Moreover, death
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sentences are irreversible, therefore it is too risky since there were many innocent lives taken by this

fallible system. The treatment of prisoners under death penalty is also inhuman and cruel.

Therefore, it is time for us all to rethink about death penalty in order to create a more justified

society that is safer for the next generations.

References

Amnesty International. (1995) .The Death Penalty: A Cruel, Inhuman and Arbitrary Punishment.

Friedman, L. (2014). Death penalty debate isn’t simple for families of victims. Washington Post.

Gross, S.R., O’Brien, B., Hu, C. and Kennedy, E.H. (2014). Rate of false conviction of criminal

defendants who are sentenced to death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(20),

pp.7230-7235.

International Federation for Human Rights. (2005). The death penalty in Thailand.

Mc Gann, A. and Sandholtz, W. (2012). Patterns of Death Penalty Abolition, 1960–2005: Domestic

and International Factors1. International Studies Quarterly, 56(2), pp.275-289.

Stubbs, C. (2014). Getting It Dead Wrong for 30 Years. American Civil Liberties Union.