Should The Death Penalty Be Abolished In Australia

The laws of the land are to protect the innocent and the weak, if we don’t have a consequence for people who commit crimes than what type of world would this be? I believe that the death penalty is morally acceptable. The definition of morality is the principles of right and wrong. To me, this means as humans we can be praised for honorable deeds and should be punished for bad ones. Forfeiting someone’s freedom isn’t the same as forfeiting someone’s life and if someone murders someone, they deserve to forfeit their own life. Morally, incarceration isn’t enough punishment for taking someone’s life, their future and taking them away from their friends and family. I believe capital punishment is an ethically correct deterrent of future murders and acceptable form of punishment for such behavior.

Since the last execution in Australia in 1967 of Ronald Ryan and the abolition of capital punishment in Australia in 1973 imprisonment has been the only option as a sanction for murder. A survey conducted in 2009 demonstrated that a clear majority of Australians (64%) believed that imprisonment should be the punishment for murder as opposed to 23% stating the death penalty should be used and 13% did not wish to comment. The death penalty is not an effective punishment for all cases and there has not been any solid evidence stating that it is a more effective deterrent than imprisonment. Furthermore capital punishment possesses the risk of executing the innocent, which has happened or almost happened numerous times in the past such as

Once upon a time most advance countries believed in the death penalty among those countries Australia was one of them. This is a barbaric and brutal way to be punished. For example criminals would be hanged put under the firing squad, injected with a lethal injection, be electrocuted or would be in a room with lethal gas. A lot of people under lethal gas actually died by banging their heads against the wall because they would rather die quicker than have a slow excruciating death. But now as time goes on, society has discovered that death does not teach us anything and in some cases it is the easier way out. Murders would rather die than spend a lifetime in prison, it cost more to put someone on the death row than a lifetime in prison. Furthermore what if someone you knew was innocent and was killed for something they did not do. An eye for an eye is not a Christian belief, it is a Jewish belief. Christianity stands firmly against capital Punishment.

However, why should we as Australians allow violent criminals to stay on our streets to possibly harm others? The death penalty does not promote the murder is ok. The death penalty should be in our society to teach the younger generation that if you decide that you are going to commit such a terrible crime, e.g. rape and murder; then this is what is at the road for you. Research done by fearof.net, the fear of death is ranked number 12 out of 100 phobias. We can use the fear of death to our advantage, by scaring the younger generation out of murdering another human being; we can finally stop nearly all murders in Australia. The death penalty is not there to teach people that killing is right, it’s there to bring justice for what violent criminals have

Capital Punishment the death penalty, it only seems fair, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Australians don’t want criminals to go unpunished, and many have started to argue that imprisonment isn’t punishment enough for crimes such as murder, rape, pedophilia, and the list goes on. Some Australians have started asking themselves the question“ Should the death penalty be reintroduced for serious crimes?” Majority of Australians still disagree, but there has been a steady incline from 2007 onwards in Australians who agree in reintroducing the death penalty(McAllister & Cameron, 2014). Which lead me to consider whether capital punishment is an effective deterrent for preventing serious crimes such as murder, rape, pedophilia etc., which seems to be the increasing opinion.

So what is capital punishment? It is defined as one person taking the life of another. In America alone there are 36 states that still use the capital punishment and Australia should do significantly more to convince countries like America, Pakistan and China to remove it from their forms of punishment? Although the Australian Government abolished capital punishment in 1967 for reasons such as the risks that come with executions, changes in verdicts and other ways around death like rehabilitation and these are the reasons why no matter what circumstances are present the death penalty will never be the answer. A quote from Mahatma Gandhi - “ Father of India”, political and spiritual leader stays, “ God alone can take life because he alone gives

Punishment is imposed when law is broken and it should work as a thing that scares to crime. Capital punishment is the legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law. Throughout history, people have been put to death for committing various crimes. Methods of execution have included stoning, drowning, burning at the stake and beheading. Today capital punishment is typically inflicted by administering lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging or shooting. Death penalty is the most controversial penal practice

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that there are now more than 33,000 inmates-the highest number ever reached in Australia- and jails in all states and territory except Tasmania are overflowing. Therefore with such overcrowded system, the chance of prisoners’ parole or escapes will increase and as a result, giving another chance to commit a new crime. A study conducted by the Australian crime shows that 39 percent of prisoners return within 2 years while 46 percent returned to corrective services. However, some prisoners do change their disposition and learn from mistakes while serving life in prison. For example, the Bali nine. Andrew Chen and Myuran Sukumaran were aware of what the consequences were but still chose to drug traffic and as a result, were executed even though they seemed to have learnt from their mistake. In addition, the Commonwealth and Public Sector Union's Karen Batt states that there has been an increased escalation of violence inside the prisons, both prisoner on prisoner and prisoner on prisoner officer. “We've had a large number of prison officers injured, eye sockets broken with billiard cues, a whole range of things and this is occurring time and time again across every

During the period of 2002 to 2014, the imprisonment rate in Australia increased while at the same time the crime rate decreased. This essay will aim to give reasons and theories as to why this apparent disparity between the rising imprisonment rate and decreasing crime rate exists. To do this, the purposes for punishment will be examined, how and why this purpose of punishment has changed over time, the sociological and criminological theories that best explain this disparity, and finally the implications on society through these criminal justice trends. However firstly we will examine the statistics that prove this disparity.

the strongest argument for capital punishment from Retentions saying “death penalty protects society from repeat criminals, those violent and dangerous offenders who cannot be reformed”. On other words, murderers or evils should repay their consequences, and many people who wanted to commit as serious crime will be change their evil thinking.

The belief that death-penalty acts as a powerful weapon of deterrence, has two faces. Firstly, that the maximum criminal penalties have a potential to cause fear in commissioning of a serious crime including murder and secondly the perception that withdrawing capital punishment will result in tipping the balance toward failure and the inability of the state to protect human life (Kronenwetter).

Capital Punishment or death penalty by its nature is immoral and shameful. Capital Punishment is not an appropriate way to punish any criminal because no one should have right to take another human's life, be it good or for the bad. Therefore, the state or the government should not posses that right. Therefore it should be abolished. it is unfair , unjust and immoral punishment; risk of being killed an innocent is not ruled out. Capital Punishment is more

The punishment of life in prison is not enough to deter a killer from killing. If there is capital punishment, the killer may think again before committing murder and weigh the risk of being killed him or herself. Smith later says, “The recidivism rate among executed murderers is a perfect zero percent.” (199). If a murderer is executed, there is no chance he or she can kill another human being. This alone is a big reason that capital punishment should be a part of all state governments.

    Confronting head-on two of the most prominent objections to the death penalty is the object of this paper: Is the death penalty a miscarriage of justice? And Does it Deter Crime?

With the arguments presented above, it seems clear that there are many valid reasons in support of death penalty. On the contrary, anti-death penalty arguments need to be assessed critically, as, for instance, the ethical issue. Further research into the topic is necessary, with more authoritative studies on the deterrent effect of death penalty on the criminal rates, tracing various states in the UK as well as evidence from other nations. It would also be interesting to examine the historical background of nations that have both capital punishment in their law codes and extremely low crime rate to see how the death penalty affects crime rates.