The Death Penalty

Although every state decides itself, which methods of execution are allowed, the method of execution of Federal prisoners (as Timothy McVeigh) is lethal injection. Most states allow only one of the methods I presented above. Death by lethal injection is practiced in 34 states, while e.g. firing squad in only allowed in Idaho, Oklahoma and Utah. I think this is amazing and I would claim that there is still a historical connection to the American Indians who lived especially in these areas in high rates. In some states, condemned prisoners who received their death sentence before a special date are able to choose between two different methods- mainly between lethal injection and electrocution or lethal gas.

Until now, a focused my view on the US, but below I will present some general facts which will lead me to the presentation of my own opinion on this topic.

The famous organization Amnesty International, which is fighting against death penalty, published an interesting statistic about “death sentences and executions in 2000”. Regarding that, more than 3,000 people were sentenced to death in 65 countries and at least 1,457 people were executed in 27 countries in 2000. These are only the cases that are known to Amnesty International so that the real number could be much higher.

Furthermore, Amnesty International found out that 88% of all known executions took place in China(69%), Saudi Arabia(8%), the USA(6%) and Iran(5%).

If you take a look on the list of the countries which are still carrying out executions, you discover that there are mainly Asian and African states. The only European countries imposing death sentences are the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Turkey.

It is astonishing that the US and Japan are the only real industrialized countries on the list. So it seems quite curious that in the powerful US such uncivilized and old-fashioned procedures are still practized and furthermore increasing at the moment as I pointed out above. Most powerful nations already abolished the death penalty decades ago: Germany in 1949, Great Britain in 1971 (except for treason), Canada in 1976 and France in 1981.

Because of the abolishment of the death penalty for all crimes since 1990 in more than 30 countries and territories, areas, in which the death penalty is not allowed, are in the narrow majority.

The major aims of the death penalty are obviously on the one hand to find an appropriate punishment for the criminals and on the other hand to deter people for the future from such evil crimes.

But I think there is for example no relation concerning the suffering between a young girl that is brutally raped and murdered and the culprit who “is allowed to” have a quiet death by lethal injection. I am of the opinion that such a punishment , in fact, does help nobody. The murderer would probably be more suffering if he had to stay in a wretched prison for the rest of his life. This could perhaps be combined with social work he has to do. Doing this, he could, at least partly, balance out the costs he causes.

Furthermore, it is proved by researches that the death penalty does not help to reduce the crime rate of the country. I think another danger is that the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated. The were cases in which people were probably executed innocently. In order to keep this number small, the investigations into the crime are immediately stopped in the US, when the “murder” is sent to death.

Finally, I would claim that the death penalty is a rather useless procedure: On the one hand the culprit does not suffer hard enough for his cruel offence and is allowed to die a “soft” death in contrast to his victim(s) and on the other hand such punishments are not able to prevent or at least to reduce murder.

But I also claim that German’s prisons are much too comfortable and that our criminal laws are too soft. I am of the opinion that a person who gets life must be behind bars for life and must not be able to leave prison after e.g. 25 years. Furthermore a cannot understand that prison’s inmates are also allowed to study or to do bodybuilding exercises!!! ~1300 words

References/ Data Sources:

- “Congressional Quarterly Researcher”, March 10, 1995 Volume 5, No.9; “Is the death penalty unjust?”

- www.web.amnesty.org ; Amnesty International Website

- US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, bulletins: “Capital Punishment 1930-99”