Death penalty has ever since agent times been important as punishment for criminals. In that period of time they had a saying: «You are not being punished for stealing sheep, but because of the fact that sheep are not to be stolen». Death penalty was used to prevent criminal actions. Is this barbaric and unethical, or isn’t it? Is it morally correct if all members of society accepts it? What effect does capital punishment have on society?

I won’t be the judge of how «right» or «wrong» death penalty is, morally speaking. I’d rather discuss the more practical consequences of it.

There are many problems with death penalty. First of all, there is no evidence for it deterring crime, nevertheless this is an argument which is often used to support it. Further this is a punishment which is a bit hard to alter, if new evidence should be brought to attention. You must accept that if you want death penalty to be carried out.

You can ask yourself. Doesn’t «an eye for an eye - mentality» make society harder and tougher? Most of those who support capital punishment, strongly represent that mentality. Very often it’s not the danger of repetition, but the claimed preventive effect which results in death penalty.

Take a look at the world today. What countries carry out death penalty? Mostly dictatorships, and countries with big social distinctions. In addition to this most of these countries have a problem with crimes of violence. The fact that dictatorships carry out death penalty is no surprise to anyone. If you’re willing to suppress with violence, you’re not far from a legalisation of capital punishment.

The other countries are more interesting. The countries who at least claim to be democracies. There is no doubt that big social distinctions result in crimes of violence; Why should one who is in jeopardy of dying every day care about the law? In this case I don’t see any reason to believe that death penalty deters crime. People who is in danger of dying, have no fear of being sentenced to death penalty or other kinds of punishment. The question is not if one is going to die, but if it’s from starvation today, or from gas in a year.

Countries who carry out with death penalty show no signs of less violence. They have a problem with crimes of violence, and they try salving it by executing criminals. You might ask yourself if they have made a wrong approach when the crime-wave is increasing.

In my opinion, when some carry out with death penalty, it’s just because it’s easier to kill the criminals than to do something to prevent crime with a process of equalisation and adaption. This way of getting to grips with a problem, has a very bad effect. Can you expect people to respect human lives, when it depends on their own existence, and when society accepts the killing of people who fight for their own lives.

Without exception you will, in two countries of the same size, find the problem with crimes of violence bigger in the country with the biggest social distinctions. Doesn’t that indicate that they’re not working to solve the problem, but just keeping it in check? Is maintaining materialistic distinctions really more important to the politicians than to secure the inhabitants of the country against crime?

I find very few arguments in favour of death penalty. Most of them are based on imaginary advantages for which no evidence exists. Other statements in favour of this are based on the problem with social distinctions. None of these arguments can make me change my opinion in this matter. I’m against death penalty!

The video just made my opinion stronger. How can youths be executed. I don’t think they have a killer instinct. They all deserve a chance to be rehabilitated. In 99 % of the cases the rehabilitation is successful. I think that speaks for itself.