Should Capital Punishment Be Abolished In Canada

The pros for the death penalty are convicting are those with serious crimes such as torture rape and murder. Capital punishment over time has become more humane because it was done by injections instead of methods used in the past. Capital punishment is the only way to stop crimes. It is believed that the threat of capital punishment reduces violent crimes. Executing convicted murders, save society money instead of keeping them in jail. The death penalty is a just and proper way of handling convicted murderers. Family’s that have lost a loved one

The latter is caused because, for a person, capital punishment is less stressing and tedious than an entire life imprisoned. At least with death, the criminal can avoid the torture of being held in a prison or worse for the rest of his life. In addition to the last statement, capital punishment would prevent many unfair legal loops from being utilized. For instance, when a murderer is condemned to life in prison, and some years later he applies for parole and is set free. In other words, capital punishment would create a relief and an escape for souls condemned to a life in prison and, on the other hand, would prevent justice from being utterly disgraced by letting awful corrupted and evil criminals out of prison in a few

Capital punishment is crime's most dreaded consequence, death. Hanging was Canada's form of capital punishment up until 1976 when it was abolished. Webster's Dictionary defines capital punishments as: "The penalty of death for the commission of a crime." (Webster's, 1994, 43). The chance of capital punishment being reinstated in Canada has been very slim up until now. Recently the Canadian Alliance Party has put forth efforts to reinstate it, which has put the controversial topic back up for debate. This has divided many Canadians concerning their beliefs. Capital punishment should never be reinstated in Canada as it is a barbaric practice that is unjust. This essay will clearly demonstrate that reinstating capital punishment

Capital Punishment is a sensitive topic that seems to constantly generate controversy amongst many individuals. To give a little background, capital punishment involves executing a person deemed guilty of a severe crime. Various countries, including America, accept the use of this method. However, other countries such as Canada are strictly against the act due to many reasons. Although some argue that they are the best form of punishment, life imprisonment is the better alternative. It is more humane, improves the financial and social state of the country, and finally is safer.

Correspondingly, it is common knowledge that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly states that “all Canadians have the right to live...” Yet the concept of the death penalty seems to be the pardoned exception. Should the death penalty be reinstated it would become immensely hypocritical for the government to continue preaching that life is important when they would be the ones taking it away. It is clear one cannot cure murder with more murder so does it matter by whom the killing is done? By taking a human life the government is lessening the value of life. One might dismiss this as the devaluation of a murderer could be seen as a just compromise, but the government is viewed as a higher power, the one in control. When the

The weakness of the system is which when the people's will is not reflected when passing a certain policy. Regardless, this is sometimes necessary for the effective role of the government. Despite the importance of the people's wishes in modern democracies, decisions must be made based on the common good and the necessity of the country. One example of such decisions overriding people's will is portrayed in the government's decision regarding capital punishment. After more than 700 executions, the Canadian Parliament abolished capital punishment. Before this abolition of death penalty, the Canadian Parliament held a vote of whether death penalty must be kept or terminated. According to the polls, the majority of Canadian were in favour of keeping the punishment. However the majority of MPs were against it. A bill to reinstate capital punishment was later introduced and the results show that the punishment is still favoured by the majority. From this, often ethics and the common good play along with the government's decisions on introducing certain policies. Many arguments have arose regarding this issue that focuses on ethical reasons along with the possibility of false and wrongful convictions. This demonstrate the inherent flaws in the source's principle of the 'will of people'. There are times when the government

As Ghandi once said, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty”. Canada is a society based around democracy; if the government grants themselves the absolute power to end a person’s life with a single sentence, there are bound to be negative repercussions. It is human nature to makes mistakes, but it is a virtue to learn from them. Instead of resulting to the death penalty as a punishment for committing a serious crime, society should have faith in that person’s ability to change, improve, and be rehabilitated. Moreover, the death penalty is an ineffective way to punish criminals when it comes to serious crimes. If anything, it is an escape for those who have no remorse for their actions. There is no reason to end the life of a human being, no matter how malevolent they are, as it does not benefit society in any way, shape, or form. One could argue that the offender would no longer be able to harm others, but that same result could come from a prison sentence. Furthermore, the rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, are fundamental human rights that are not subject to a select group of people, but all of humanity. Capital punishment, no matter the reason, is essentially still murder, as the life of another human is being taken. Limitations must be set in order to separate humanity from the criminals it harbors. Society

As of 2008, fifty-eight, about one-third of the world’s countries, favor the death penalty, including the United States (Death Penalty Information Center). Currently, thirty-five out of the fifty states, including California, Florida, Arizona, Kentucky, Texas and even Washington, have legalized capital punishment (Death Penalty Information Center, 2010). As of January 1st, 2010, 3291 inmates were awaiting their punishment on death row (Death Penalty Information Center, 2010). California holds most of them, with 697, followed by Florida with 398 (Death Penalty Information Center, 2010). The 2009 FBI Uniform Crime Report showed and stated the South has the highest murder rate of all areas of the country and is therefore directly related to being responsible for over 80% of all executions. Also, consistent with previous reports, the Northeast has the lowest homicide rate of the nation and is only responsible with a small 1% of execution (Death Penalty Information Center, 2010). Now, in regards to Canada, the death penalty is a sentencing that the country does not justify. However, it has not always been this way. It wasn’t until 1976 that the death penalty was removed from the Canadian Criminal Act, where it was then replaced with the mandatory life sentencing without the chance of parole for the first twenty-five years. This was true for all first-degree murders (Munroe, 2010). Following that date, in 1998 capital punishment was removed from the

Most importantly there are no statistics or proven facts that capital punishment deters and protects society from future criminals. In fact in 2004 Canada's homicide rate was 1.95 per 100,000 people (Statistics Canada); this was almost three times lower than that of the United States which came in at 5.6 per100 000 people (U.S. Department of Justice). Though there are other factors influencing homicide rate, it is still and indicator of the deficiency of capital punishment. Trudeau stated in his famous speech of 1976 "If we have reason to believe that hanging will protect society from murder and violent crime, if this cause or relation can be established then hanging is permissible…..having looked at the debates and looked at the statistics now and the passed its obviously not established…..when human life is at stake you solve it in favor of life not death." (CBC Canada)

“The total number of death penalties between 1867 and 1971 is 1481. The total number of executions is 710, 697 men and 13 women” (February 10, 1956). So many men and women died, some innocent, some guilty. However no crime is big or bad enough that it should take someone’s life away. Who are they to judge whether or not we should keep our lives, they were not the ones who gave it to us. And in the situation that they do kill an innocent person, they should die as well for murder, like the law states. Finally we do not have to live like this, “The argument against the death penalty eventually won Canadians over and the practice was abolished in 1976. Sadly this was after Wilbert Coffin” (February 10, 1956). After 104 years of executions and wrongfully committed victims who lost their lives for a crime they never committed, finally the eyes of society have been opened and people realized this practice was

The criminal justice system is innately flawed; since 1900 twenty three innocent people have been executed in the United States that has been documented (citation needed). Which is one of the reasons why I think it should remain illegal in Canada. The sentence doesn’t deter crime, (citation needed) and in some cases it only exasperates the crime which it was supposed to deter. Also, in order to keep an inmate on death row it costs on average ninety thousand dollars more than keeping an inmate for a life sentence, in the United States (Baskey-East, S. 2014).

Though Canada abolished death penalty for almost 30 years, there are many public opinion still supporting restore capital punishment today.Whether capital punishment will restore is a disputed issue. People who in flavour of capital punishment are mostly believed that it can decline criminals, and also make people fear capital punishment. People who supporting

Furthermore, on top of not reducing criminal activities, Capital punishment is a waste of money. Dieter state that Over two-thirds of the states and the federal government have installed an exorbitantly expensive system of capital punishment which has been a failure by any measure of effectiveness. Literally, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on a response to crime which is calculated to be carried out on a few people each year and which has done nothing to stem the rise in violent crime (Dieter n.d.)When in fact there is another way to go about it. The death penalty is much more expensive than its closest alternative -- life imprisonment with no parole. Capital trials are longer and more expensive at every step than other murder trials. (Dieter n.d.)Over the past three decades, there has been a downward trend in the number of murders that lead to arrest and conviction to the point that only

Capital punishment has been around for many years as a way of executing criminals. Despite what most believe, capital punishment is not functional in the American society. Defenders of the death penalty often claim that the execution of criminals will teach others not to do bad, initially decreasing crime rates. Unfortunately, statistics prove that thought to be wrong. Capital punishment also has great flaws. For example, many innocent people have been put to death because of capital punishment. There also is no consistency. Two of the same crimes can be convicted in two different states and the consequences with be different for both offenders. The death penalty shows to be

Death penalty sends a bad message to the society. The people in the society are made to believe that human life has no value, and when one commits a heinous crime like murder, they deserve to die. This is a bad message to the society because, the society should be taught to respect each others life and that every individual has a right to life. A humane society does not kill or support the killing of their fellow human beings, therefore, capital punishment is a violent homicide that teaches the society the permissibility of killing in order to solve social issues, and this is a bad sign. Hence, death penalty should not be allowed because it is the worst example to the society.