Is Capital Punishment Defensible?
Term Paper
Is capital punishment defensible?
Submitted to: MH
In partial fulfillment of requirement for the course
Use of English
Submitted by: TDH
Kingston, Jamaica
June 13, 2003.
Morgan Hill, a man convicted of murdering a nineteen-year-old woman, was the last person to be killed by the island's judicial system some fourteen years ago. Our government suspended the death penalty in order that amendments could be made to the laws of our country, amendments that would protect the rights of its citizens, and ensure that the perpetrators and victims of crimes are fairly treated. Recent increases in the island's crime rate however, especially in the area of homicides, has led the government to again be thinking about reinstating capital punishment as a means to deter people from performing these criminal acts. Information obtained from polls conducted on the issue of whether capital punishment should be re-established or not, has revealed that approximately ninety-five percent of the citizens of Jamaica are affirmative regarding this concern (Come back to Jamaica, hangman 2001). A critical examination of the arguments in support of this position is therefore warranted.
"Capital punishment is the infliction of death by an authorized public authority as punishment for a crime" (Oxford English Reference Dictionary 2002). The same dictionary also states that an act becomes defensible when it is justifiably supported by arguments. My task, therefore, is to evaluate how justifiable are the arguments purported for inflicting death as punishment for crime.
Charles Colson quotes from C. S. Lewis's classic essay, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment", in which Lewis writes: "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ought to have known better,' is to be treated as a human person made in God's image." Lewis, in giving his argument for punishment in general and capital punishment in particular, suggests it would be
Is capital punishment defensible?
Submitted to: MH
In partial fulfillment of requirement for the course
Use of English
Submitted by: TDH
Kingston, Jamaica
June 13, 2003.
Morgan Hill, a man convicted of murdering a nineteen-year-old woman, was the last person to be killed by the island's judicial system some fourteen years ago. Our government suspended the death penalty in order that amendments could be made to the laws of our country, amendments that would protect the rights of its citizens, and ensure that the perpetrators and victims of crimes are fairly treated. Recent increases in the island's crime rate however, especially in the area of homicides, has led the government to again be thinking about reinstating capital punishment as a means to deter people from performing these criminal acts. Information obtained from polls conducted on the issue of whether capital punishment should be re-established or not, has revealed that approximately ninety-five percent of the citizens of Jamaica are affirmative regarding this concern (Come back to Jamaica, hangman 2001). A critical examination of the arguments in support of this position is therefore warranted.
"Capital punishment is the infliction of death by an authorized public authority as punishment for a crime" (Oxford English Reference Dictionary 2002). The same dictionary also states that an act becomes defensible when it is justifiably supported by arguments. My task, therefore, is to evaluate how justifiable are the arguments purported for inflicting death as punishment for crime.
Charles Colson quotes from C. S. Lewis's classic essay, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment", in which Lewis writes: "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ought to have known better,' is to be treated as a human person made in God's image." Lewis, in giving his argument for punishment in general and capital punishment in particular, suggests it would be