Is the death penalty OK?

If y'all murder someone, don't you lose the right to stay alive yourself? Plus, if people know they might be executed for committing a crime aren't they less probable to practice it? Just if it'south a crime to impale someone, why is the government immune to do it? Hmm...

Do we have a right to live?

If you're reading this, and so you must be alive. And we guess y'all'd like to stay that fashion - and so you'd probably be a scrap miffed if someone tried to kill y'all. Fair enough. But practise you have a right to stay alive? Or is it just something y'all'd like to be able to exercise?

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A right isn't just something you want or retrieve you should have, it'due south something you're legally entitled to - something that the law says no one should be able to stop y'all from having.

And so what rights do we accept?

The Universal Declaration of Man Rights

After the horrors of World War II, many countries wanted to exercise something to make sure that it could never happen again whereby a government could decide that some people mattered and some people didn't. So together they drew up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that sets out some key things that all human beings should be allowed. Things similar the freedom to believe in any religion you desire (or none at all), the right to get married and have children, the right not to be tortured and the right not to be held equally a slave. All pretty good stuff really.

Not every country in the earth has signed up to the declaration, but lots take. The UK fifty-fifty passed a Human Rights Act in 1998 which made 16 of those rights part of our national law, and then it would be illegal for anyone to take those rights away from the states no matter how old we are, what color our skin is, or what gender or sexuality we have. And Section 2 of that Human Rights Human action says "Every human being has the inherent right to life". That ways a natural, born right to be live and to stay that way.

So how can the death penalty be legal?

If yous keep reading Section 2, still, y'all'll spot some interesting things. Take a expect:

"Every man being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected past law. No ane shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of cardinal justice."

Aha - so we have the right to life, but with a few limitations…

"No one shall exist arbitrarily deprived of his life"

If something is capricious, it means that it's based on random choice or personal whim, rather than whatsoever reason or arrangement. So it'south illegal for someone to kill you just considering you've irritated them, or because it's Tuesday, or because they don't like the shoes yous're wearing. Simply what this leaves room for is the idea that if the reasons are not arbitrary - if they're clear, fair and rational - then our correct to life isn't guaranteed anymore. And when you add that together with the side by side judgement...

"...the right not to be deprived [of life] except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice"

This is saying a similar affair - it's showing that our right to life is limited, we don't have it in every circumstance. The justice systems of some countries say that when you commit a terrible crime you lot should lose your life to pay for what you've done. And the law of Human Rights says that if it's a principle of fundamental justice, then you've reached the limits of your correct to life - and the constabulary stops protecting you.

This is true with other areas of the police and Human Rights. We all take a right to freedom - only if someone's imprisoned, their correct to freedom has been taken away. They lose that right when they break the police. In a similar fashion, in countries that have the death penalty, the law gives anybody the right to life - but if an private commits a certain law-breaking deemed equally punishable by the decease, then they lose its protection.

Has the Human Rights Act got it right?

Only the big question is - exercise you agree with the wording of the Universal Homo Rights Declaration? Do you remember there should exist limits on our correct to life? Are at that place things we tin can do that mean nosotros lose our rights? Or is there a natural moral value to homo life that shouldn't have any limits - no matter the state of affairs? That'south for you to figure out.

Around the world in executions

The expiry penalty: expert idea or bad idea?

The death penalty, also chosen upper-case letter penalization, is when a government or country puts a person to expiry because they've committed a serious crime. Here are some of the most common arguments for and against this controversial practise...

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Why yous might think information technology's a skilful idea

It makes it impossible for criminals to do bad things over and over once more

Executing someone permanently stops the worst criminals and means we tin all experience safer, as they tin't commit any more crimes. If they were in prison they might escape, or be permit out for good behaviour. Executing them means they're definitely gone for practiced.

Information technology's cheaper than prison house

It costs the authorities quite a lot of coin to keep someone in prison for the whole of their life, so executing them tin can relieve money. It'southward slightly different in every state (in America the capital punishment is pretty expensive) only on the whole, it'southward a cheaper selection.

It's proportional to the crime

If someone has killed another person, y'all might think it's fair that they suffer the same punishment - death. After all, we shouldn't forget the old fashioned (but nonetheless relevant) principle lex talionis, a Latin phrase which loosely translated means 'an middle for an eye'.

It scares other people who might be thinking about committing a crime

If you knew you would be put to death if you killed someone, you'd probably be less inclined to do it. Information technology's the ultimate warning and hopes to put other offenders off (we call this a deterrence).

It helps the victim'southward family become closure

If someone in your family had been murdered, yous might well experience that it'due south only right that they die also (this is known every bit retribution). It might help you grieve and movement on from their death if you felt the person who had killed them was gone too.

Why you might think it's a bad thought

Sometimes people are innocent

Sometimes the courts and the judges go it wrong and condemn an innocent person to death. A recent U.s. study showed that at to the lowest degree 4.1% of all people sentenced to decease in the US in the modern era are innocent - that's one person in every 25 people!

It'due south fell

Every form of execution causes the prisoner suffering - whether information technology's the electric chair, or hanging, or chopping their heads off. And it causes huge mental and emotional suffering too - imagine knowing that you were going to die tomorrow forenoon at 8 am? Pretty horrible. And no matter what someone has done they shouldn't exist forced to suffer something so inhumane.

It's not fair to the criminal'southward family

Imagine how you'd experience if someone in your family committed murder and was sentenced to death. You'd be incredibly lamentable and upset and why should you be punished? You didn't do anything wrong. At to the lowest degree if they were just in prison you could all the same visit them. Merely that'due south a little harder if they're expressionless.

It doesn't give people a chance to change

We all brand mistakes in life - sometimes little ones like forgetting homework, sometimes huge ones like murdering someone. If we put murderers to death, they never go the run a risk to acquire from their mistakes or make a positive contribution to the world. Imagine if we put to death someone that might have worked out the cure for cancer?

It'southward hypocritical

If it'southward illegal to murder, why is it OK for the land to practise it? Doesn't that send the wrong bulletin? Killing someone is either incorrect or right, and our society has said information technology's wrong and fabricated it confronting the law - so why does the government become to break that police force?

How much does it toll to execute someone?

Governments have lots of different things to remember about when they're deciding whether or not to judgement a person to death - or whether to even accept the capital punishment in their country at all. And one of those things is money. So how much does the death sentence price compared to other forms of penalty, similar prison? https://www.youtube.com/scout?v=XlycRm9Fh7w

Do executions put people off murder?

This commodity explores the challenges of working with statistics especially when investigating something as complex as capital punishment and murder rates. Plus, it asks, what is the departure between causation and correlation?

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What would you do if your parents grounded you, merely there was a really slap-up gig that your friends were planning to go to? You lot know that if your parents caught you sneaking out they'd footing y'all for fifty-fifty longer - and maybe cut your pocket money as well. Would it be worth the risk? Maybe, maybe non.

But what if you knew that the punishment for sneaking out would be to accept 1 of your legs cut off? Well, that's a whole dissimilar ball game.

Although the chances of you getting caught might be pretty slim, the extreme punishment makes it a much bigger risk. In the end, you lot'd probably decide to stay at home.

All actions accept consequences. And if we know in accelerate that the consequences could be really serious, that might well make united states change our minds about doing it. But the question is - is this truthful when it comes to violent law-breaking? Does knowing that the death sentence is a possible punishment stop people from committing murder?

That'south a really hard question to answer - how do yous peradventure test it? Not many people are willing to come forward and say "Oh sure, I was planning on killing my adjacent door neighbour, simply so I remembered about the capital punishment and decided not to."

So one of the main ways researchers try and effigy out if it might be a deterrent (something that 'deters' or stops people) is by looking at the murder rates in countries that have the capital punishment compared with those that don't (since murder is the main crime that will result in a death sentence). In theory, if the threat of execution works to scare people off the idea of committing a murder, then countries that still accept the death penalty should have lower murder rates than countries that don't.

Murder rates

Death penalty map

Well, that'due south all pretty looking pretty negative for the 'yes it works as a warning' crowd. It doesn't seem like at that place'due south much evidence that having the decease penalty stops people from committing murder.

Behind the numbers

But it's non quite that simple. For starters, we don't take any manner of knowing what would have happened if those countries had chosen to practise something differently with the expiry penalty. The countries that abolished it, and saw a drop in the murder charge per unit, might have seen the same drop even if they'd kept the death sentence – something else may take caused the reject in murders.

Same for the countries that kept it and saw the murder rate go upward - that might have happened even if they'd got rid of the death penalty. We have no way of seeing those culling realities, and then we tin't prove that those numbers mean what we remember they mean.

And nosotros can't forget that a whole load of unlike factors need to be taken into consideration when looking at murder rates. Crime can exist affected by a country'south economic and political state of affairs or its levels of unemployment.

It's complicated and means we can't but settle our question of whether the capital punishment is an effective murder deterrent merely by looking at how the murder rates are correlated with the introduction of the death sentence.

Two things happening at the same time (correlation) doesn't mean that one caused the other (causation). Hither are some other (crazier) correlations which remind u.s.a. that correlation and causation are not the same things:

Spurious correlations 1

Spurious correlations 2

So where does that leave us?

a) Does the death penalty work?

Many of the arguments in favour of the death penalty and its ability to deter criminals come from the U.s. - yet a contempo study at the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation's leading criminologists don't believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. And they were asked to base their answers on existing enquiry, regardless of their personal views on capital penalisation.

At the end of the day, there'south no ignoring the fact that there just isn't much evidence that the death sentence acts a deterrent to would-be criminals.

b) Does it matter whether the death penalization works?

Just even we could really prove that death sentence deters people finer from committing violent crimes, it might still be morally incorrect. In that location are many situations in life where we have the choice between getting something done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and doing something the "correct" mode – meaning a fair way, a style that respects everyone involved.

Consider this example: you're playing a game with your friends, and you've played information technology so many times that you know all the means in which y'all could crook, and win. Simply if you do that, the game will be over in a minute, and you won't be able to savour spending some quality time with your friends – not to mention that you'll have lied to them! In that state of affairs, you would probably decide to be honest, considering it'due south the right affair to practice, but also because it benefits you lot in the long run.

So, fast results and efficiency aren't the just things (or even the master things) that matter – especially when it comes to decisions involving human lives.

Over to you...do y'all call up the capital punishment works – and do you think that the question of whether it works is the principal question we should be asking? Well, that's for you to decide.

Nike'south slogan "Just do information technology" was actually inspired by the last words of a man nearly to be executed!

Nike'south slogan "Simply practise it" was actually inspired past the terminal words of a man about to be executed!

Women and the capital punishment: 4 things you didn't know

  1. The law prefers men
    1. Of the 58 countries in the globe that have the decease penalization, only 37 currently have whatever women on their 'decease row' awaiting execution - just all of them have men. One important gene to consider is that much fewer women commit violent crimes. A global written report from 2013 by the United Nations Role on Drugs and Crime constitute that men committed about 96 percent of all homicides worldwide. That said, it's possible that some countries are willing to give lighter sentences to women for some types of crimes, although this is not the norm: ordinarily, the aforementioned criminal offence is punished in the same mode, regardless of the criminal'due south gender. Some exceptions to this are Belarus, Guatemala, Russia and Tajikistan, all of which have actually made it illegal to sentence a adult female to death. Although even when women are given the expiry penalty, it seems they're more probable to be allow off. Statistics from the UK show that in the 20th century 145 women were sentenced to death, but simply 14 of those sentences were actually carried out - that means just over ninety% of women were excused instead of executed. The charge per unit of pardons for men is much lower. Of grade, at that place might be other reasons for why judges take been more lenient with women in the past – reasons that take nothing to do with the severity of the crime. For example, countries may be more lenient with female person criminals when they have immature children.
  2. Historic period matters
    1. Not in every country, simply in a fair few. For example Iran - their laws allow the death sentence for boys from age fifteen and for girls from age nine. More than generally, there are a few countries that uphold some or all parts of Sharia Constabulary (the religious law forming office of the Islamic tradition) e.k. Sudan, Afghanistan, Qatar, Egypt, and Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya. Under a strict interpretation of Sharia Law, a boy tin't be sentenced to expiry until he's 14 years and 5 months old (it'due south very specific), simply a girl tin can exist executed every bit before long equally she turns 8 years and 8 months old. But recall, different countries use these laws differently: even if something is immune by constabulary, that doesn't mean information technology's e'er actually practised in all of these countries. Also, different countries sign different international conventions and treaties, some of which may be in tension with a strict use of Sharia Police.
  3. Existence significant saves your salary
    1. With the exception of one country (the two-island Caribbean nation Saint Kitts and Nevis) it's actually illegal to execute a pregnant woman, as that would involve killing an innocent human being - the infant. Some countries merely filibuster the execution until after the woman's given birth, but most of them end upwards excusing the sentence altogether and just imprisoning them. So you can see why, in some cases, women have actually tried to become meaning by bribing guards to slumber with them and then that they could avoid the death sentence.
  4. Having an affair can be a life or expiry matter
    1. The constabulary in Iran says that if a adult female gets caught having sexual activity or gets significant outside wedlock, she tin be sentenced to death. And in countries governed by Sharia constabulary, similar Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Somalia, having sexual activity outside of marriage is officially illegal for anybody - both men and women - but in reality, men are rarely punished equally severely as women. Like the case in Saudi arabia in 2015, where a woman defenseless sleeping with a homo she wasn't married to was sentenced to death, while the human she was caught with was only given a beating.

Crime-stopping medicine: swapping the decease penalty for drugs

What if, instead of killing criminals, we could just make them better people – only by popping a pill? Philosopher, Dr David Birks (University of Oxford) discusses the future of punishment and the possibility of a crime-stopping drug.

https://world wide web.youtube.com/lookout man?5=NpD55jrUMLc&t=4s

Is the death penalty OK?

  • Justice is served

    If someone has killed another person, you might think information technology's fair that they suffer the same punishment. After all, we shouldn't forget the old-fashioned principle lex talionis, a Latin phrase which loosely translated means 'an eye for an eye'. It might also aid the victim's family get closure. If someone in your family had been murdered, you might feel that it'due south merely right that they die too (this is known as retribution). It might assistance you grieve and move on from their decease if you knew the person who had killed them was gone likewise.

  • Innocence and rehabilitation

    Sometimes the courts and judges get information technology wrong and condemn an innocent person to expiry. A contempo US study showed that at least 4.i% of all people sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent - that's one person in every 25 people. Information technology also doesn't requite people a chance to modify. If we put murderers to death, they never get the run a risk to acquire from their mistakes or make a positive contribution to the world. Imagine if we put to decease someone who might take worked out the cure for cancer?

  • Protect the public, deter the criminals

    The capital punishment makes it incommunicable for criminals to do bad things over and over again. Executing someone permanently stops the worst criminals and means we tin all feel safer, as they can't commit any more crimes. Information technology also scares other people who might be thinking about committing a criminal offence and and so information technology serves as a 'deterrence'. If yous knew you would be put to death if you killed someone, you'd probably be less inclined to exercise it. It's the ultimate alarm and hopes to put other offenders off.

  • The universal right to life

    The Universal Annunciation of Human Rights is a document that sets out central things that all human beings should be immune. Things similar freedom of belief, the correct to get married, and the correct not to be held as a slave. In 1998, The Uk passed a Human Rights Act which made 16 of these rights part of U.k. police force, so it would be illegal for anyone to accept those rights away. Also, Section 2 of that Man Rights Act says "Every human being has the inherent correct to life". That means a natural, built-in right to be alive and to stay that way.

  • Exceptions to the rule

    In some areas of the law and of Man Rights there are exceptions. We all have a right to freedom - but if someone's imprisoned, their correct to freedom has been taken away. They lose that right when they interruption the law. In a similar way, in countries that take death penalty, the law gives everyone the right to life - just if an individual commits a certain law-breaking deemed as punishable by the death penalty, and so they lose its protection.

  • Life in prison saves money

    In the US, the death sentence is very expensive. It'south not simply the cost of prosecuting and putting a person on death row, there's likewise the price of keeping them there. When criminals are on decease row they can appeal their sentence (contend that they are innocent), a process that may last more a decade. Some studies suggest that the cost of a death penalty in the U.s. is near $3 million, but keeping somebody in prison for life costs nigh $1.1 meg. This makes the death penalty three times every bit expensive.

Is the death penalisation OK?

Vote now

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