Capital punishment

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Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, refers to the custom of executing prisoners who are convicted of certain crimes. Such crimes are known as capital crimes, and tend to be grave crimes against persons or governments (such as premeditated murder, rape or treason).

In the world today

Of the main developed countries, only the United States and Japan use formalized capital punishment, though many developed countries give law enforcement greater authority to kill than allowed by the United States. For emerging countries, China uses the death penalty and in the non-developed world it is practiced in most Shari'a states (those whose legal systems are based on Muslim legal philosophy), as well as many others.[1][2]

According to officially released governmental figures, the liberal human rights organization Amnesty International estimates that Singapore has the highest execution rate in the world, at 13.65 hangings per 1,000,000 residents. Saudi Arabia has the second-highest rate, at 4.65 per 1,000,000. Human Rights Watch, another prominent liberal organization, does not have any recent figures.

Based on 2004 figures, China is the world leader in total number of executions with an estimated 3,400. Following China is Iran with 159 and Vietnam with an estimated 64 executions. The United States executed the 5th greatest number of people in the world with a total of 52. [3]

United States

Capital punishment in the United States is handled on a state-by-state basis; twelve states' laws do not allow for executions at all. Capital punishment is also used by the federal government and the military.

Pennsylvania has hundreds of people on death row, though only three inmates have been executed since the reinstatement of capital punishment laws, and all three essentially "volunteered" by dropping their appeals. In Texas, one man has been on death row for 31 years.[4] Appeals and stays of execution can create a backlog on death rows in many states.

Though the United States suspended the death penalty in 1973, it was reinstated in 1977. 65% of Americans believe putting someone to death for a crime is acceptable, according to a recent poll. But respondents were close to evenly split on whether they would prefer the death penalty (50%) to mandatory life in prison (46%). The death penalty is most favored by age 30+ males who are Caucasian and Republican.[5]

Some studies conducted since the start of the new millennium have consistently shown a deterrence factor in the United States based on use of the death penalty. It has been calculated that each person executed saves the lives of anywhere from 3 to 18 innocent people.[6] However - other studies have shown as a whole, "death-penalty states" typically have higher murder rates than states that have outlawed capital punishment.[7]

It has sometimes been question why 65% of Americans believe putting someone to death for a crime is acceptable (see above), when 76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag

European Union

The death penalty has been abolished in all 27 European Union member states, and 47 out of the 50 countries in Europe (only Belarus and Kazakhstan still practise it, and Russia has had an effective moratorium since 1996).[8] The EU has long been against capital punishment, and campaigns for its abolition worldwide. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, legally adopted in the Treaty of Lisbon, bans execution in all member states, and abolition is a condition of acceding to the EU.[1] EU law also bans detainee transfers in cases where the receiving party may seek the death penalty.

Religious views of capital punishment

Christianity

Biblical View

The Old Testament of the Bible has several passages that recommend the death penalty for different offenses.

According to the Old Testament, these are the offenses which merit the death penalty:

  1. Murder (Exodus 21:12, 21:15)
  2. Kidnapping to sell into slavery (Exodus 21:16)
  3. Cursing Parents (Exodus 21:17)
  4. Bestiality (Leviticus 20:15)
  5. Desecrating the Sabbath (Exodus 31:15)
  6. Adultery (Leviticus 20:10, Leviticus 19:20)
  7. Sacrificing children to Molech (Leviticus 20:2)
  8. Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16)
  9. Incest (Leviticus 20:11, but see Genesis 19:33, 19:35, 4:17)
  10. Homosexual intercourse (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13)
  11. Witchcraft (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27)
  12. False Prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:5)
  13. Worshiping a false god (Deuteronomy 13:6-10)
  14. Sex with a woman betrothed to another (Deuteronomy 22:25)
  15. False witness in a capital crime (Deuteronomy 19:16-20)
  16. Daughter of a priest becoming a prostitute (Leviticus 21:9)
  17. Juvenile delinquency (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
  18. Sacrificing to false gods (Exodus 22:20)
  19. Unchastity (Deuteronomy 22:21-24)
  20. Rebellious Sons (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Few people support capital punishment for non-murder offenses, and a number of Christians oppose the death penalty in all cases. Apologist JP Holding argues that the Bible including the New Testament nowhere repudiates the use of capital punishment, but that it does not necessarily mandate its use, either. [9]

Catechism of the Catholic Church

While not specifically saying it should be banned in all cases, the Catholic Church favors life over capital punishment as it gives the chance for redemption.

The State's effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime. the primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the offender.

The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor. "If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. "Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'[10]


See also

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 EU: Concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty in all Circumstances
  2. ↑ Encarta: Capital Punishment Worldwide
  3. ↑ The Economist Pocket World in Figures 2008 Edition 2007, p. 99. London: Profile Books. ISBN 978-1846680908
  4. ↑ http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-deathrow28jan28,1,1271967.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
  5. ↑ ABC News/Washington Post poll: Death Penalty
  6. ↑ Studies: Death penalty discourages crime http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,280215,00.html
  7. ↑ Deterrence (English) (HTML). Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved on 2007-08-21.
  8. ↑ http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/001/2007/en/ACT500012007en.html Document - List of abolitionist and retentionist countries (1 January 2007)
  9. ↑ http://www.tektonics.org/af/cappun.html
  10. ↑ [John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM
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