Death as a Deterrent

Capital punishment is the punishment for the more serious offenses in certain countries. The punishment is death by either hanging, electric chair, beheading, lethal injection, etc. The idea behind capital punishment is that the concept of death will deter other criminals from committing any crimes. These criminals may fear death more than jail, but when in my eyes, staying in jail for life and working laborious jobs is worse than death. Still in thirty eight states in the United States capital punishment is legal, usually caused by murder, but also could be from treason, terrorism and other serious crimes.

The main reason capital punishment exists is to deter other criminals form committing the same crime, in theory this works because the criminals will be afraid of the unknown of death. The issue is that in most cases the countries with capital punishment have about an equal crime rate with the countries that have no capital punishment. The reasons for this could be that the criminal doesn't know what his punishment will be. He could be unaware that the trial will be quick and he will almost certainly be guilty. Also the criminal could get away with his crime due to the fact that only 63% of murderers in the U.S. are caught.

A reason why some people are against capital punishment is because of the morality issue. This is an issue in euthanasia as well because the people are not sure if it is right or wrong, most people say euthanasia is wrong, but capital punishment is right. It is actually kind of hypocritical because They won't allow people to die if they want to, but they don't have a problem killing people against their will. Personally I agree with euthanasia but I disagree with capital punishment because someone should be allowed to choose when they die, and a criminal should be given the worst treatment.

Death is scary to us because it is unknown, people think - Will I go to heaven, hell, or will there be nothing? That is why capital punishment exists, to scare other criminals, but since it doesn't deter most criminals. Because of that we should try and give them the worst punishment. Of course torture is extremely cruel and immoral, so the second best option is to force them to stay and make their life miserable, in a humane way. Such as giving them the worst food and making them do the hardest jobs, or something that will be negative towards them. This is better because from a non-religious standpoint, death is neutral, you may not be able to enjoy anything, but you will never have to suffer. Being locked up may not be as scary but it won't but fear of death doesn't seem to be stopping very many criminals.

Capital punishment could be for fear, revenge, or to give the criminal a suitable punishment. But for revenge, if someone is a killer, killing them back won't solve anything. Fear is still the main reason many countries keep capital punishment, but what those countries aren't realizing is that it isn't having much of an effect on the crime rates in that area. The only logical option left is to try to give the criminal a proper punishment for what they have done, which would be something that makes their life miserable, while not being cruel.