Capital Punishment or Life Imprisonment: which one is better?

Every situation which is identified with any of the unlawful offenses is portrayed in two
unique classifications of crimes: Capital Punishment and life imprisonment. Capital
punishment is used as methods for annihilating lawbreakers since the Old Testament times.
There are various ways in which the capital punishment is executed and also it differs from
country to country. Meaning of capital punishment is killing the lawbreakers. It is clearly the
most extreme type of criminal punishment. Capital punishment seems to be crueller in nature.
(Bedau, 1977) Five nations on the planet represent 80% of state killings: (1) China, (2) Iran,
(3) Iraq, (4) Saudi Arabia, and (5) the United States. The death penalty is a disputable method
for managing savage hoodlums. The principle option in contrast to capital punishment is life
imprisonment. Life imprisonment is a sentence of detainment for a crime under which
convicted people need to stay in jail either for whatever is left of their natural life or until
paroled. Life imprisonment resembles giving another opportunity and it is progressively
empathetic and remains remorseless in nature. Life in jail still offers an individual by
allowing a chance to appreciate portions of his life and also having the capacity to stay in
contact with their families.

I think the time has come to ban capital punishment in each nation. Murder is an awful
wrongdoing that is never advocated. In any case, I trust that the discipline ought to be life
imprisonment without the likelihood of parole, instead of capital punishment. Life
imprisonment without the likelihood of parole keeps the society safe from executioners,
while disposing of the danger of an irreversible mistake of convicting the wrong person.

Capital punishment models the conduct it looks to avoid

Capital punishment is utilized to deter killers, yet it displays the very conduct it looks
to prevent. It shows the exercise that it is worthy to slaughter, as long as the state is the one
doing the murdering. Subsequently the expression "The capital punishment" is fairly
confusing. Capital punishment is like giving the answer of violence with counter violence.
We don't like individuals who slaughter other individuals, so to demonstrate everybody the
amount to which we don't like individuals who execute individuals, we are going to murder
individuals who execute other individuals. It appears the death penalty basically conflicts
with all that it professes to be for. (Bushman, 2014)
You may slaughter the wrong individual using capital punishment

William Blackstone, the English law specialist, judge, and Tory legislator of the
eighteenth century, stated that it is better that ten blameworthy people escape than that one
guiltless endures." So giving person capital punishment is like taking away their chance of
proving themselves as not guilty as capital punishment is irreversible, so it is important that it
be utilized on the genuine executioner. More than 140 individuals have been absolved and
liberated from death row, based on DNA evidence. As per the work of innocence staff, Keith
Allen Harward barely got away from capital punishment in the wake of being excused by
DNA evidence. He served more than 33 years in a Virginia jail for an assault and murder he
didn't commit. So there is high chance of convicting the innocent man. But capital
punishment doesn’t give the chance of any parole to the offender to improve himself.

Capital punishment does not decrease murder rates

The accessible proof demonstrates that capital punishment does not diminish murder
rates. FBI Unified Crime reports demonstrate that states with capital punishment have murder
rates 48-101% higher than states without capital punishment. Additionally, a global
investigation of criminal brutality broke down information from 110 countries over a time of
74 years and found that capital punishment does not dissuade culprits. (Archer & Gartner,
1987) Rationality behind why the death penalty presumably won't prevent criminals is that
most manslaughter is completed in an assault of anger, after genuine contentions, when
people every so often consider the results of their exercises. So the primary reason that death
penalty was given isn't served by it since wrongdoing carried out by criminal was without the
possibility of their activity.

Capital punishment focuses on the poor people and also discriminates by their
colour

 OJ Simpson's lawyer who received $50 lakhs for defending him said that in the U.S.,
you're in an ideal situation, in case you're in the framework being liable and rich than being
honest and poor. Poor are not able to afford the high fees of good lawyers so their case is not
well represented and they are cursed by the decision of the court. As stated in the CBS news
by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that individuals who are very much
well represented at trial don't get capital punishment. The American Bar Association three-
year contemplate closed: "Each state examined seems to have critical racial inconsistencies in
forcing capital punishment, especially connected with the race of the person in question, yet
little has been done to amend the issue." As per the report of American Civil Liberties Union
blacks make up 12% of the U.S. population; however they make up 48% of those waiting for
capital punishment. The chances of getting capital punishment increment by 38% when the
blamed is Black. (Bushman, 2014)

Capital punishment costs more than life imprisonment

A few people might be shocked to discover that capital punishment is unquestionably

more costly to execute than life imprisonment without the likelihood of parole. Take the
territory of California, for example the California capital punishment framework costs
citizens more than $11.4 crores every year past the expense of basically keeping the convicts
bolted up forever. What's more, California burns through $25 crores for every execution.
Notwithstanding state costs, there are additionally government costs. The government court
framework spends around $1.2 crores every year on shielding death row prisoners in
bureaucratic court. Main reason that people favour the capital punishment than life
imprisonment is due to the belief that capital punishment is cost effective but it is not true in
the numerous capital punishment cases include a long, drawn out, complex, and costly legal
procedure. It isn't economically efficient, essentially, to execute a criminal than to keep him
in imprisonment forever. The expense to the state of a capital offense trail and of all the
subsequent appeals is extreme, just like the additional expense of keeping up a detainee on
death row for what may be numerous long stretches of claim. (Spangenberg & Walsh, 1989)

Capital punishment adversely impacts legal hearers, judges, governors, and

killers

Capital punishment ought to likewise consider the potential mental effect of executing
another person on the hearers, judges, governors, and killers involved. Jurors are
unrecognized casualties of the capital penalty. One author concluded that jurors are
unrecognized victims of the capital punishment. (Slick, 2011) Corrections officers really do
the executions, and 31% of them endure Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Capital
Hearers Project met 1198 jurors from 353 capital punishment case from 14 states and found
that 81% of female members of the hearers and 18% of male hearers lamented their choices,
and 62.5% of female hearers and 37.5% of male hearers looked for guiding after the trial. A
few disclosed to me they were experiencing difficulty dozing, and I stressed they would
create post-awful pressure issue in the event that they needed to experience it another time.
(Thompson, 2016)

Life imprisonment: a chance of redemption

Life imprisonment with likelihood of parole is like giving a second chance to the
prisoner. Every prisoner should get a chance of redemption no matter what type of worse
crime he has done if he understand his mistake and want to make it right. Every prisoner
should be allowed to move towards the path redemption and help the general public and also
towards the development of mankind and society by being a resourceful man. They should be
allowed to have a hope of having a good life after serving their sentence. (Smit, 2014)

Life imprisonment is more cost effective

In 1992, The Dallas Morning News reported that “the mean cost of a Texas capital
punishment trial is $230 lakhs vs. $7.5 lakhs for life imprisonment.” In 2014, the cost of the
capital punishment case had risen to $380 lakhs as reported by one defence lawyer. So we
can say that the money of the taxpayers is saved if the countries adopt the life imprisonment
as a method of punishment. (McVicar, 2019)

Life imprisonment spreads less negativity

We as a general public need to figure out how to not think as far as "An eye for an
eye". "An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind", is the thing that Mahatma
Gandhi said. Capital punishment energizes a culture that approves of brutality. Such type of
negativity is not spread by life imprisonment as a chance of having a life is given to the
prisoner.

Life imprisonment helps the family of prisoners

In the punishment of life imprisonment the family members of the prisoner could still
meet him and could avoid the emotional stress caused by the death when a member of the
family is dead.

Chance to prove himself innocent

 There are various cases in which the prisoner has proved him innocent by getting
some new evidence like the use of DNA as evidence stated by Death Penalty Information
Centre (DPIC).

At last I would say that Life imprisonment is a good alternative over Capital punishment as a
method of punishment. As capital punishment is crueller in nature and it is inhumane as
methods of capital punishment are lethal injection, beheading, electrocution, gas chamber,
firing squad, and hanging. But life imprisonment doesn’t do any inhumane act on the
prisoner.

References

American Bar Association (2007). ABA study: State death penalty systems deeply flawed.
Retrieved from http://apps.americanbar.org/abanet/media/release/news_release.cfm?
releaseid=209

Archer, D., & Gartner, R. (1987). Violence and crime in cross-national perspective. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Bedau, H. A. (1977). The courts, the constitution, and capital punishment. Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books.

Bushman, B. J., PhD. (2014, January 19). It's time to kill the death penalty. Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-psyched/201401/it-s-time-kill-the-death-
penalty

Capital Hearers Project. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/scj/13189.php

CBS News (2001, April 10). Justice backs death penalty freeze. Retrieved
from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-backs-death-penalty-freeze/

Innocence and the Death Penalty. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty

FBI Uniform Crime Reports (2013). Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.
McVicar, J. (March 01, 2019). Letter: Life imprisonment more cost effective than death
penalty. Retrieved from https://www.southwesternontario.ca/opinion-story/9201448-letter-
life-imprisonment-more-cost-effective-than-death-penalty/

Rogers, S., & Chalabi, M. (2013, December 13). Death penalty statistics, country by
country. The Guardian. Retrieved
from https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/death-penalty-countries-
world

Slick, J. (2011, October 14). The weight of 'playing God': In capital punishment cases, jurors
are punished. The Oregonian. Retrieved
from https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2011/10/the_weight_of_playing_god_in_c.html

Smit, D. V. (2014, January 03). Even life prisoners should have hope and a chance to change
| Dirk van Zyl Smit. Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/03/life-prisoners-david-cameron-100-
year-sentence

Spangenberg, R. L., & Walsh, E. R. (1989, January 11). Capital Punishment or Life
Imprisonment-Some Cost Considerations. Retrieved from
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol23/iss1/4/ Retrieved
from https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol23/iss1/4

Thompson, S. F. (2016, September 15). What I learned from executing two men. New York
Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/what-i-learned-
from-executing-two-men.html?WT.mc_id=2016-SEPT-FB-HIGHMC-AUD_DEV-0916-
0930&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVGate

Virginia Man Exonerated by DNA To Be Released After 33 Years. (2016, August 04).
Retrieved from https://www.innocenceproject.org/virginia-man-narrowly-escaped-death-
penalty-exonerated-dna-evidence-released-serving-33-years/