By: Priya MigneaultAre you aware that in 2017 China executed over 1000 people?
Capital punishment is the act of putting someone to death because of a criminal conviction, it is also know as the death penalty. Countries such as Canada, France, Mexico, Argentina, as well as 140 others have abolished the death penalty vs other countries such as Japan, China, the USA, etc… that have not. The only first world countries that still practice capital punishment are the USA and Japan. The death penalty should be banned in every country because the people on death row could be accused of crimes they did not commit, it is proven capitial punishment does not deterre criminals, and putting people to death causes mental health issues for officers. First off, it is important to ban the death penalty because according to an article written by John Grisham for the Chicago Tribune somewhere between 2 - 10 percent of people convicted are innocent. According to Innocence Canada, the majority of wrongful convictions occur due to eye witnesses, “Eyewittness evidence can be unrealiable for many reasons such as stress, emothions, lighting, distance, and memory issues.” Other factors that lead to wrongful convictions are false confessions, false guilty pleas, tunnel vision, systemic driscrimination, errors in forensic science, and professinal misconduct. Even though we are coonsistently trying to improve our justice system mistakes occur. A clear example of this is the 1989 Central Park 5 case, where five black and hispanic boys between the ages of 14 - 16 were found guilty of the attempted murder, rape, assault, and robbery of Trisha Meili. When the boys were taken into custody they were seperatly interrogated without parents for at least seven hours and ended up videotaping confessions. The five later said that they were coerced into giving false confessions by detectives and officers. After two trials they were all sentenced to 6 - 13 years in prison, despite the DNA at the crime scene matching none of them. At this time Donald Trump was highly suggesting the New York state bring back the death penalty for the five dispite then being underrage. The five were recently exonerated from prison after serving almost a full sentence. If the boys had been convicted under the death penalty five innocent people would have died. The death penalty shound be banned becasue not everyone convicted of crimes is guilty. Futhermore, according to the Amnesty International, “Since abolishing the death penalty in 1976, Canada’s murder rate had steadily declined and as of 2016 was at its lowest since 1966.” Jeffery Fagan, a professor of law at Columbia university says, “Even when executions are frequent and well publicised, there are no oberservable changes in crime. Excutions serve only to satisfy the urge for vengence. Any retributive value is short-lived, lasting only until the next crime.” The death penalty does not serve us in any way other tan our need for vengence, and there is no evidence that is deters criminals. According to a study done in 2009 by Michael L. Radelet and Traci L. Lacock, “over 88 percent of criminologist did not believe the death penalty deterred murders.” Australlian Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry had this to say about the death penalty: “ There are all sorts of other punishments - life imprisonment and so on - but the idea that a government would take individuals out into the bush, as they would here, and shoot them is just something that I can never live with and never understand, and apart from anything else, from a legal point of view, no-one really claims now that it has any real deterrent value. It’s just a terrible thing to do.” The death penalty should be banned because not only is it inhumane but it causes mental health issues for execution officers. According to a recent article on execution guard mental health written by Robert T. Muller, “ (Execution) guards have reported depression, inablity to sustain relationships, and changes in personality.” The article also features an interview with an execution guard who had an episode of PTSD when “the eyes of all the inmates he had executed began flashing before him.” A few states in America are becoming aware of the effects performing executions have on officers. In an effort to try and take some of the mental and emotional stress off them “authorities also try to disperse feelings by having multiple guards involved in the execution process. With lethal injection, the method of execution used in most states, three officers are assigned to turn a key switch that releases the lethal drug into the prisoner.” According to a new study released from the Washington State, “Prison employees have a rate of PTSD roughly equivilent to war vetrans who’ve served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Officers who have PTSP experienced “bad dreams of work-related events… disturbing flashbacks… and avoiding memories or reminders of workplace tramas.” We all must start becoming aware that the death penalty should be banned becasue it not only effects the inmates being executed, but it also has life time effects on officers. Keeping all the previous evidence in mind every country must ban the death penalty becasue 2 - 10 percent of people convicted are innocent, there’s no evidence it deters people from commiting crimes, and it effects officers mental health. Some argue that it is a waste of taxpayers money to keep high risk offenders alive, but prison is meant to be about rehabilitation not execution.
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