Capital Punishment Essay: Death Penalty Or Execution

Capital punishment, also referred to as death penalty or execution, is punishment by death. 103 (53%) countries have completely abolished the death penalty while 6 (3%) countries retain this punishment solely for special circumstances, such as war crimes. A total of 86 (44%) countries retain the death penalty, 50 (26%) of which haven’t executed anyone for at least 10 years or are currently under a moratorium. However, if the individual was under the age of eighteen when committing the crime, execution of said individual is prohibited by international law. Only the countries of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan carry out such executions. Despite the majority of countries having abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world’s population live

Firstly, death teaches the convicted nothing. He who committed the crime is sentenced to death and not given the chance to think through his/her miscarriages of justice. However, a person is never executed immediately, therefore they are given a sufficient amount of time to not only fear their fate but also rethink their actions and misdoings. Notwithstanding, capital punishment, however much feared, won 't necessarily dissuade criminals to continue committing crimes. This may be because the perpetrator is either psychotic and enjoys committing felonies or the offender simply doesn 't fear death. Aside from the fact that capital punishment may be an unfair punishment at times, not only does it gives the culprit no chances for rehabilitation, but can also be a miscarriage of justice; if someone were to be found innocent after having been executed, there 's no way to bring the person back meaning they have been killed because of human error. Sometimes the execution may go wrong and take longer than expected. The problem with killing a criminal is we never know if the methods used today caused him/her pain. If a person deserves to be harshly punished, imprisonment may be the answer. Say a murdering pedophile was incarcerated, considering a vast number of his inmates were abused as children, it isn 't unheard of for them to gang-rape, castrate, stab, beat to death or behead him. It is possible for jailing to be a worse fate than death. Take Zacarias Moussaoui as an example, a member of the 9/11 hijacking teams caught one month before the attack; since 2006 he has been incarcerated in a tiny concrete cell for twenty-three hours a day with only one hour dedicated to exercise in an empty concrete swimming pool. He has no access to his inmates and barely has any contact with his guards. Execution is also viewed as hypocritical. A nation is denouncing murder by committing the same act, making this a question