Today the death penalty like a form of punishment is actively used in the United States, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemeni, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan and elsewhere. The death sentence as the ultimate punishment is at the roots of our history.
People are executed since ancient times, and the weapons have changed and improved. People were quartered, hung, thrown into a pit with wild animals (with bears, snakes, crocodiles), drowned, thrown off a cliff, burned at the stake or burned in a bronze bull, their heads were cut off with an ax or guillotine, etc. In a more "civilized" world we use the shooting, electric chair and lethal injection.
But what about the value of human life? Searching for an answer in the Bible, we find at the same time, "an eye for an eye" and "Thou shalt not kill." Therefore the death penalty is an ambiguous thing. It`s pluses: protection of society, the deterrent effect, the economic injustice of life imprisonment, the death penalty as an act of humanism. It’s minuses: the possibility of a miscarriage of justice, the absence of anti-reason, contradiction with "international norms." There are enough cases where innocent people have been executed to argue that the death penalty violates human rights.
As for Ukraine, our judicial system is underdeveloped, so introducing the death penalty is very unlikely. Here many innocent people can be executed due to corruption.
Add new comment