Essay on Capital Punishment in Foreign Countries

Here is your essay on Capital Punishment in Foreign Countries:

It is a great anomaly that the crime rate is higher in developed and well educated countries, such as America, Canada, Britain and France, etc. Even in communist countries, including China, where it is propagated that socialism is achieved, the crime rate has not decreased and the reason is human tendency.

Every man is selfish and because of this factor to achieve more and more the tendency increases. It gives birth to various criminal and there is always controversy in foreign countries also. Some views are against and some views are in the side of execution of capital punishment.

In America, penologists, criminologists, social workers, etc. justify the retention of capital punishment for two obvious reasons. Firstly from the point of view of protection of society, death penalty is needed as a threat or warning to deter the potential murderers. Secondly, it also accomplishes the retributive object of punishment inasmuch as a person who kills another has perhaps forfeited his claim for life.

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It is, however, generally argued that the risk of being executed in fact serves no deterrent purpose because the murderer often plans out his crime in such way that the chances of his detection are rare and he is almost sure of his escape without being punished. The retention of death penalty for capital murders is justified on the ground that if not executed, they will remain menace and potential danger to society.

But instead of this views. Recently in America capital punishment is to be restricted only to the offence of murder and rape and available literature on capital punishment in United States testifies that in modern times the sentence of death is being sparingly used in that country.

Another noticeable trend during recent years is to make the process of execution private, painless and time consuming.

At present, the common modes of inflicting death penalty in United States are electrocution, hanging asphyxiation with lethal gas and shooting. There are several American states that have abolished death punishment with beneficial results.

An international survey carried out in 1962 by the United Nations, however confirmed that neither suspension nor abolition of death penalty had any immediate effect in increasing the incidence of crimes punishable with sentence of death. The countries which had abolished capital punishment, notably Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Denmark and some Latin American states reported no ill effect of abolition.

It is quite often argued that death penalty “brutalize” human nature and cheapens human life. Thus, it vitiates the humanitarian sentiments concerning the sacredness of human life. It is for this reason that most of the American reformists strongly argue that death penalty should be declared unconstitutional as cruel and violation of due process of Law and they also said that retributive principle does not serve any useful purpose. Retribution can only do more harm than good to the criminals and can never be an effective measure of suppressing crime.

In Rome and Greece from ancient times, capital punishment was executed to murderers and they realized that murder, being the worst of crimes, and must deserve the highest penalty which is death sentence. They believed that by threatening with the loss of life of those who violate others rights of live should protect the right of innocent to live.

In modern period also most of the penologists, criminologists and social workers, etc. accepted that deterrent value of death penalty should serve as best method to eliminate crime from society. The Greek penal system also provided death sentence for many offences.

Execution of death penalty in public places were favoured in ancient Greek criminal administrate because of its deterrent effect. Nowadays also the percentage of reformists who oppose capital punishment are less in number than the persons who support death penalty. They almost all have accepted the deterrent value of death penalty.

In Italy there were divergent views about the utility of death penalty. Some of the penologists and criminologists supported application of capital punishment for habituals and incorrigibles. In their view death sentence served as an effective deterrent for recidivists who are beyond reformation of any kind.

The other groups of reformists opposed capital punishment on grounds of morality and denounced it because it had a demoralizing effect on society. They believed that life of an individual is too precious to be ended by the award of death sentence. Especially Garofolo and Beccaria opposed death penalty and had always advocated against it.

In France the reformists argued against death penalty that it is unjust and often discriminatory against poor who cannot defend themselves properly, and the capital punishment does not have deterrent effect.

Recidivists take the risks of criminal justice system whatever the penalties. Thus it has no rational purpose and so they fee) that retention of death sentence is not in consonance with the modern reformative trend of penology, and recently in France capital punishment is abolished after a considerable debate and discussion among the penologists, criminologists and law reformers.

England was particularly infamous for her brutality towards the condemned prisoners during England’s regime in India numerous death penalties were executed, even awarded to innocent and patriots of Indian Independence war. In England also during fifty years regime of Henry VII the gravity of capital punishment increased at the top in the whole world. They are famous for brutality they used to take the offender’s life.

And after Henry VII also the brutality still continued in England, the offenders were not put to death at once but were subjected to slow process of amputation by bits so that they should suffer maximum pain and torture.

The obvious reason for the frequency of execution was the concern of the ruler to eliminate criminals in absence of adequate police force to detect and prevent crimes. The methods of putting offenders to death used in England were extremely cruel, brutal and tortuous.

But as the time passed, the severity of capital punishment was mitigated, and the public opinion disfavoured the use of capital punishment for offences other than the heinous crimes. Reformists argued that an execution arising out of miscarriage of justice is irreversible and the forms of capital punishment brutalizes the society that tolerates it.

Reformists in England at that time, especially in nineteenth century strongly protested against the use of cruel and barbarous modes of punishing the offenders and emphasized the need of individualized treatment.

The irrevocable and irreversible nature of death penalty gave rise to a number of complications which invited public attention towards the need for abolition of this sentence. Consequently the British Royal Commission on capital punishment was appointed in 1949.

To examine the problem and as a result of findings of this commission death sentence was suspended in England. For Five Years from 1965 and was finally abolished by the end of 1969. But with the vast modernization and technological development in England variety of new crimes emerge which are beyond control by ordinary imprisonment.

And the constant increase in the incidence of crime in recent years has necessitated Britain to re-assess its penal policy regarding death penalty and so they feel the need of capital punishment for heinous crimes, so Privy Council emphatically stressed that the award of death sentence is not violative of human rights or fundamental rights.