“Kill the killer” seems to be the best remedy to do justice to the killed and his/her family left behind. For the most cruel and heinous crimes, the ones for which the death penalty is applied, offenders deserve the worst punishment under our system of law, and that is the Death Penalty. Any other punishment would undermine the value society places on protecting lives. Retribution has its basis in religious values, which have historically maintained that it is proper to take an “eye for an eye” and a “life for a life”.
The Death Penalty is the only true proportionate punishment for killers. Killers take away the greatest right- the right to life. When this is violated, no earthly punishment is great enough to “balance the scale of justice” according to Kant. The only way to keep the scale equal is to kill the killer. The punishment given to the killer must best fit the crime he commits. By letting him live, you are placing the life of the criminal over that of the victim. How fair a society is that? Capital punishment permanently removes the worst criminals from society and should prove much safer for the rest of us than long term or permanent incarceration. It is self evident that dead criminals cannot commit any further crimes, either within prison or after escaping or after being released from it.
Anti-death penalty campaigners always argue that death is not a deterrent and usually site studies based upon American states to prove their point. This is, in my view, flawed and probably chosen to be deliberately misleading. Death penalty is a deterrent, but only where execution is a virtual certainty. The death penalty is much more likely to be a deterrent where the crime requires planning and the potential criminal has time to think about the possible consequences. Where the crime is committed in the heat of the moment there is no likelihood that any punishment will act as a deterrent.
Despite arguments to the contrary, the death penalty is a morally acceptable punishment for murder. In fact, it is morally wrong not to execute a murderer because punishment must fit the crime.
Simply putting someone in jail does not in the least justify the taking of someone’s life. The purpose of the death penalty is to bring the murderer to justice and to acknowledge the sanctity and dignity of innocent human life. Therefore I rest my topic with a firm belief that death penalty is the only true and just punishment to be given to a murderer.
By Mohini Singh,
Content Writer – DU Times
