Autorin: Florjancic Martina

THE DEATH PENALTY - CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Every year a lot of murderers are executed. The death penalty deters criminals from commiting crimes. They know if they commit a crime they will be imprisoned or sentenced to death.
It´s very difficult to decide wheter somebody should live or die. Judges are not always competent or independent. So it could happen that innocent people are executed. The death penalty is an irreversible punishment. Once carried out it can never be corrected.
The supporters of the death penalty want to prevent criminals from commiting another crime. They execute murderers and prevent people from killing again. This way you can save innocent lives in furture.

On the one hand the death penalty is considered to be an appropriate punishment for very cruel crimes but on the other hand you can´t really prevent people from killing by threatening to kill them. Life imprisonement has the same effect. They would spend their whole life there so it would be a moral or ermotional punishment. They would have to suffer from their guilty conscience.
Sometimes it happens that murderers become religious in this time.
The modern view is that criminals should improve during their time in prison.

It´s true that life imprisonment is more expensive than executions but costs shouldn´t really matter when it comes to issue of life and death.
The Declaration of Human Rights prohibits all forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Amnesty International totally oppposes capital punishment and seeks the abolition of the death penalty. It has already happened in several countries.

I think that the death penalty is not always fair. The kind of punishment is often determined not only by the nature of the crime but also by the social and ethnic background, the financial means or the political opinion of the defendant.
Friends and relatives of the victims often want to take revenge on the murderer. They propably wish for the death of the culprit.

For innocent people it´s hard to prove that they aren´t guilty and if they have no anibi they have no chance to be acquitted. Sometimes people have been imprisoned for ten years and after this time it was found out that they were not guilty. It was a mistake.

I can´t express my personal opinion because there are two aspects to a crime: the innocently executed and the familie or friends of the victims.

the death penalty - capital punishment Todesstrafe
deters abhalten
imprisoned eingesperrt
sentenced to death zum Tode verurteilen
innocent unschuldig
execute hingerichten
irreversible nicht umkehrbar
punishment Bestrafung
prevent verhindern
cruel crimes grausame Verbrechen
threatening drohen
imprisonment Gefangenschaft
guilty conscience schlechtes Gewissen
prohibits verbieten
degrading treatment erniedrigende Bestrafung
seek bestreben
the abolition die Abschaffung
the devendant der Angeklagte
victim Opfer
to take revenge on sich rächen an
culprit Verbrecher
prove beweisen
guilty schuldig
to be acquitted freigesprochen werden