Capital Punishment

It is well known that in many countries in the world that capital punishment is still used as a form of indictment for certain crimes: murder and armed robbery being the main ones. The individual usually has to spend some time in a prison for an unknown period of time until the final day of reckoning before being killed for his crime. In the US, many states use the electric chair or lethal injection to implement the death penalty on the indicted individual. Can Capital punishment be justified and is it bad?

To kill someone is always bad since it breaks the laws that keep order and balance in society; there is no quarrels with this. But to take 'an eye for an eye' i.e. punish the murderer with the loss of his life is controversial. The loss of one person is tragic; is it right to condemn the murderer with death? Is capital punishment a convenient way to reduce the burden on the prison services? In the UK, it was a moral question that changed the law and the use of hanging was stopped in 1964. So why do many less-developed nations and the US still use the capital punishment system?

In the US, it could be due to the fact they have a population of 200million and law and order must be maintained with a punishment that pays the ultimate price: your life. This might keep the US justice system in balance. In less-developed nations it could be the fact that authoritarian governments see any form of crime a form of dissent against the state and leaders, therefore disloyalty on their part, and death is the only punishment. Such regimes would be seen as abhorrent in Western eyes. But is it right??

Countries have their own laws and it is their decision to make whether capital punishment is a form of indictment. But, they do have a moral obligation to their citizens. This is where it could be bad; if it is blatantly obvious that capital punishment is a tool of terror and coercion to control the population then it could be deemed bad. In the US, it is used to set an example: break the law and you could pay with your own life.

Capital punishment is and shall remain highly controversial. It could be classed as a morally bad subject but it can be an effective punishment when implemented in a controlled manner.

Here is a link to the History of Capital Punishment in the U.K.:

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/contents.html