Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal
process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a
crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death
sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution.
Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or
capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis,
literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading).
Capital punishment has, in the past, been practised
by most societies (one notable exception being Kievan Rus); currently 58
nations actively practise it, and 97 countries have abolished it (the remainder
have not used it for 10 years or allow it only in exceptional circumstances
such as wartime). It is a matter of active controversy in various countries and
states, and positions can vary within a single political ideology or cultural
region. In the European Union member states, Article 2 of the Charter of
Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital
punishment.
Currently, Amnesty International considers most
countries abolitionist. The UN General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008 and
2010, non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions,
with a view to eventual abolition. Although many nations have abolished capital
punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where
executions take place, such as the People's Republic of China, India, the
United States of America and Indonesia, the four most-populous countries in the
world, which continue to apply the death penalty (although in India, Indonesia
and in many US states it is rarely employed). Each of these four nations voted
against the General Assembly resolutions.
In early New England, public executions were a very
solemn and sorrowful occasion, sometimes attended by large crowds, who also
listened to a Gospel message and remarks by local preachers and politicians.
The Connecticut Courant records one such public execution on 1 December 1803,
saying, "The assembly conducted through the whole in a very orderly and
solemn manner, so much so, as to occasion an observing gentleman acquainted
with other countries as well as this, to say that such an assembly, so decent
and solemn, could not be collected anywhere but in New England."
Trends in most of the world have long been to move
to less painful, or more humane, executions. France developed the guillotine
for this reason in the final years of the 18th century, while Britain banned
drawing and quartering in the early 19th century. Hanging by turning the victim
off a ladder or by kicking a stool or a bucket, which causes death by
suffocation, was replaced by long drop "hanging" where the subject is
dropped a longer distance to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord. Shah
of Persia introduced throat-cutting and blowing from a gun as quick and painless
alternatives to more tormentous methods of executions used at that time. In the
U.S., the electric chair and the gas chamber were introduced as more humane
alternatives to hanging, but have been almost entirely superseded by lethal
injection, which in turn has been criticised as being too painful.
Nevertheless, some countries still employ slow hanging methods, beheading by
sword and even stoning, although the latter is rarely employed.
The following methods of execution permitted for use:
·
Beheading (Saudi Arabia, Qatar)
·
Electric chair (Alabama, Tennessee,
Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Oklahoma and Kentucky in the USA)
·
Gas chamber (California, Missouri and
Arizona in the USA)
·
Hanging (Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Japan,
Mongolia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Palestinian National Authority, Lebanon, Yemen,
Egypt, India, Burma, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Malawi,
Liberia, Chad, Washington in the USA)
·
Lethal injection (Guatemala, Thailand,
the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, all states in the USA that are using
capital punishment)
·
Shooting (the People's Republic of
China, Republic of China, Vietnam, Belarus, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, North
Korea, Indonesia)
Though the awarding of capital punishment, specially
for murder, is according to age-old, tradition, in recent times there has been
much hue and cry against it. It has been said that capital punishment is
brutal, that it is according to the law of jungle - "an eye for an
eye", and tooth for a tooth". It is pointed out that there can be no
more place for it in a civilized country. Moreover, judges are not infallible
and there are instances where innocent people have been sent to the gallows
owing to some error of judgment.
Capital punishment is nothing but judicial murder,
it is said, specially when an innocent life is destroyed. Besides this, capital
punishment, as is generally supposed, is not deterrent. Murders and other
heinous crimes have continued unabated, inspite of it. The result of such views
has been that in recent years there has been an increasing tendency in western
countries to award life imprisonment instead of capital punishment. Muslims
countries, generally speaking, continue to be more serve in this respect.
Despite frequent demands from all society Indian has
not so far abolished capital punishment. But even in India there has been a decline
in the frequency of such punishment. It is now awarded only in cases of
hardened criminals and only when it is established that the murder was not the
result of a momentary impulse, the result of serious provocation, but
well-planned and cold-blooded. In such cases, it is felt that nothing less than
capital punishment would meet the ends of justice, that it is just and proper
that such pests of society are eliminated. Those who indulge in anti-social and
sternest possible measures should be taken against them, specially when they
are habitual offenders.
It is, therefore, in the fitness of things that
India has not so far abolished capital punishment but used it more judiciously.
Sociologist are of the view that capital punishment serves no useful purpose. A
murderer deprives the family of the murdered person of its bread-winner. By
sending the criminals to gallows, we in no way help or provide relief to the
family of the murdered. Rather, we deprive another family of its bread-winner.
The sociologists, therefore, suggest that the murderer should be sentenced for
life to work and support the family of murdered person as well as his own. In
this way, innocent women and children would be saved from much suffering,
hunger and starvation. Moreover, such measures would provide the criminals with
an opportunity to reform himself. He would be under strict watch and if his
conduct is satisfactory, he may be allowed to return to society as a useful
member of it.
There is much truth is such views, and they must be given
due weightage before a decision is taken to abolish or retain capital
punishment. But Capital punishment should be continue for those who commit rare
of the rarest crimes such as child rape, group rape, terrorism and etc.
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