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Is it possible (or even desirable) to forgive those who commit horrible crimes against us and those we love? What do you think of this writer’s arguments against the death penalty? Are you glad there is no death penalty in Slovakia, or would you like to see it reinstated?
Is it possible (or even desirable) to forgive those who commit horrible crimes against us and those we love? What do you think of this writer’s arguments against the death penalty? Are you glad there is no death penalty in Slovakia, or would you like to see it reinstated?
The article, and the topic itself, are indeed controversial. Since I believe nobody, except a person itself, should have a right or power to finish its life, the death penalty ought to become as soon as possible only a memory from the past, a punishment that should not be tolerated in any state. As the writer showed us, 140 countries already do not practise capital punishment and even the European Union is strictly against the death penalty, since the abolition of capital punishment is one of the requirements the state must comply to become the member of the EU. It is obvious that the majority of the world perceive the death penalty as the punishment that breaks the human rights. That is the right way which India should follow as well.
ReplyDeleteAccording to my opinion, the biggest problem of capital punishment is its irreversibility. As was mentioned in the article, the Supreme Court in India admitted the errors in several death penalties. Although the most of them were found out before the execution, two of them were not fortunate enough and their lives were taken unnecessarily. I understand everybody can make a mistake, even a judge, but in these cases the precise investigation and following judgement is imperative. As we can see, the reality is far from the ideal vision of flawless justice. To prevent from these serious – and often deadly - mistakes, the best solution is to prevent from capital punishment at all.
If I take into account also the facts Sonia Gandhi was writing about in her letter to the president, as well as gesture of her daughter, I find the arguments referring to retributive and deterrent justice quite questionable. I understand it is very improbable that all relatives of the victims would be willing to forgive murderers as it was in the case of Sonia Gandhi, however, deterrence and vengeance is not a proper solution. In the case of revenge, the result would be violence again, even if it is an execution of a murderer. And what is the effect if state was to support spreading of violence? On the contrary, the purpose of punishments should be a remedy. And if the convicted is executed, the remedy is impossible, as was said in the article. Moreover, deterring cannot reform the executed. Even Amnesty International claimed disbelief in the argument that death penalty has a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment, and I can only agree, because my opinion is that a person who wants to kill will not decide whether to kill or not according to punishments he could undergo. Furthermore, it is debatable to consider life punishment as better choice than death.
To pursue, I, personally, believe that death penalty should be abolished since every human being has a right to decide its fate on its own, and by the death penalty the absolutely most essential human rights, right to live, is taken away. In this case, I would prefer for those murderers who are commonly conducted on capital punishment to have a right to decide whether they want to be executed, since they are not able to live in prison with the guilt in their soul for the rest of life. For those, who would not choose death, the punishment in a form of life imprisonment would be a proper solution.
To conclude, death penalty should not be practised anymore for several reasons. As was proclaimed, justice erred in many cases, just in India, two men were executed even though there was no reason for it. Moreover, the death of murderer does not bring us any good, only another suffering of relatives of the executed. And, moreover, the strongest reason why capital punishment must be abolished is the fact that state must not be allowed to take away the right to live, our most important vital right.
There are only two possible answers to the question whether to enact death penalty or not. However, the difference between these divides people in two contrast groups, and if you choose one, you are considered either a hypocrite (because you don’t want to punish the convict) or as a monster (because you want to punish him or her too radically). But is there also the right answer, which would represent a compromise?
ReplyDeleteThe author clearly states that she is against the death penalty and with her points I agree. I would especially mention the fact that by putting the death to the criminal, his or hers commitment is not eliminated, as the state does not have the competence of killing any human being, mentioned in the article. Nevertheless, by doing so, nothing can be changed on the fact that the crime was once committed. Therefore, retribution by doing the same thing to the criminal is, in my opinion, not the best way how to atone a crime, and although being little bit naive, I still believe that every person can change. Thence, there always is the option of “forgiving”. Furthermore, nobody can be rejected to have his or hers right to live, regardless of what one has done.
On the other hand, if we take a strictly moral stands, should the family of a victim contribute on feeding the criminal? As we know, prisoners cannot be forced to do more than community service, that hardly outweigh the contribution of innocent people. The prisoner is de facto living from the money of innocent and honest people, this kind of a person is therefore a burden from the economical side. And this is one of the reasons why I think that the option of death penalty should be present.
All in all, despite the previous two opinions seeming a little bit contradictory, I will now try to come up with a solution that would be acceptable for both sides. My proposal consists of offering a choice to a person condemned to life imprisonment. To be more precise, a choice between spending the rest of the life in a cell and immediate death. On one side, I consider this as more moral. Even if someone committed such a horrible crime worth one of these options, at least he can make his own decision for one last time, either to suffer in prison for the whole life or to make a radical end. Secondly, by this method we can potentially overcome the mistakes made by court, mentioned in the article. unlike the truly guilty person, a sentenced but innocent person is more probable to hope for the court to change the verdict and lay-off him or her in the future. Thus, that person is more likely to choose life sentence instead of death penalty. But is there a single criminal that chooses death?
Firstly, I disagree with you with what you said in the first paragraph, that either you are someone who doesn’t want to punish a criminal or someone who want’s to, let’s say kill a criminal. I think, it really depends on every situation individually. I completely disagree that if you are not for killing the criminal, that it means you don’t want to punish him. It’s really easy to say that if you forgive someone, you will find peace, as mentioned in the article. Because the fact that I would forgive someone who killed my dad, won’t give him back to me is real. I would definitely fight for radical punishment in case, that something like that would happen. Simply, just because of the hate and infinite sadness I would feel. On the other hand, I know it is not right. But the solution you have proposed is not right either. I understand, what was your point. To give criminals their right, so the state cannot take away their life just like that. But is it really right? To give someone who made a horrible crime, who took someone’s else liberty a choice? Do they deserve it? My opinion is that they don’t. As I said on the beginning, every case should be investigated individually and properly. By that we can avoid mistakes and decide, which criminal has a chance to change. Death is not a proper revenge, it’s too simple. The person that committed the crime won’t feel any consequences in the end. I know it sounds crazy in a way, because by death someone takes your life,your liberty, your chance to experience and love. But death is too simple, we don’t know if something waits for him afterwards to be punished, like hell. We are just getting him rid of all the responsibility of his acts, of all the shame and pain he could feel - which I think is a worse punishment than exemption of his soul. Victims may not find redemption in his pain, but they may be aware of real punishment and maybe also observe his progress of understanding seriousness of his past acts.
DeleteAs the author of the article thinks, the death sentences and subsequent executions should be abolished.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to talk about the right to prevent someone from further life. Bible says (John 8,7b): “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” And this word, I believe, is what we should build our thoughts about death penalties on. Nobody is perfect enough to be allowed to kill someone. I know and you cannot deny, I and you are sinners. We have done so many bad things. Why? Because people do them, it is our nature. Only God can help us. But still it is our decision, our decision to call someone a bad word or to murder someone. It is hatred. However, we are not strong enough to change it, to change ourselves. And as we are bad, as everybody is bad and none perfectly fair or simply perfect, people should not have the right to decide about one to die.
Secondly, the imperfectness is not the only thing that people who have not killed anyone have common with murders. They are also people, living human beings having their own world, probably friends or family, thoughts, personality, problems, pains or their own happiness, just as me or you.
Thirdly (Bible, Mathew 7, 18): “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. “ Examining the effects of death penalties we can find out whether they are right or not. So what do they bring? Is it closure to the victim's family? No, not even the author of the article thinks so, for s/he says it comes after forgiveness. I agree with this. Will revenge stop the hatred? I do not think so. If one hates someone he lives with it and is getting destroyed by the hate from inside, he needs to forgive. All in all, I do not think that the capital punishment can bring anything good at all. It brings only pain or disappointment to the family and the near ones of the sentenced (even more disappointment if the person is not really guilty, which has happened many times involving the cases mentioned in the article). Or possibly even more hatred, for example, the family of a sentenced person could get angry at the judges who could have made a mistake and even the judges could feel guilty if they made it. Furthermore, the sentenced person loses all her hope and her life gets much more destroyed (actually totally destroyed) than it was by her bad acts.
On the other hand, what could be better? I really liked the reaction of Sonia Gandhi. The amnesty was beautiful. I do not know her real reasons, but it had to be hard for her to forgive the ones who cooperated in assassination of her husband. How did Nalini Sriharan, who was previously sentenced to death, have to feel when she was forgiven? Could this person possibly stay unchanged? I am not sure, because forgiveness and amnesty are very strong things. We all should forgive. (By this I do not want to say that we should not take the responsibility for our acts, we have to take it, but forgiveness would make this world a much better and nicer place and maybe the death penalties would not be needed at all.)
To sum up, there is nobody fair enough to sentence someone to death and even the person who could be potentially sentenced to death is a living individual. I think that death penalties have much more bad effects than good ones and so, according to my opinion, this kind of punishment should not be used.
Fortunately, the death penalty is not a common thing in Slovakia. Our country belongs to those 140 countries mentioned in the article in which the death penalty is either abolished or simply not practiced any more. Sad to say, this is not the case of India. Despite of the fact the Supreme Court admitted the errors made in the capital punishment (moreover, two of these sentences were wrong also in the cases where there was nothing to do, because the criminals had been already executed) India rejected the idea of putting an end to the death penalty more than one time.
ReplyDeleteEven though I wouldn’t love the death’s penalty comeback to Slovakia, it is still a very controversial topic for me. On the one hand, I believe there should not be nothing and no one in this whole world who could have the right and ability to decide whether a human being is allowed to live or not. The right to life is one of the first and most important rights of the society and it is the most significant precondition to the modern and developed world.
But as we all know, there is also the other hand of this never ending dilemma. Aren’t there people who actually deserve to die? Mass murderers, those who unmercifully killed innocent children, disgustingly raped young ladies. Is there anything that can help to fix the broken hearts of the relatives of the victims? Is it possible to somehow remove the mental problems all the victims have when they happen to survive? The knowledge of the criminal being killed and going through enormous tortures can be pleasant and replenishing for those who remained in this world after the deceased. Even though the world could be beautiful and peaceful I simply can’t agree with the author’s opinion, I can’t believe that “true closure can only come from forgiveness, not retribution.”
Michaela said or rather asked whether there are not people who deserve to die. The truth is there are. We all deserve to die. We all have done bad things, but there is something that makes us compare them. One considers himself a better person from the others. But why is it like this? People usually do not realise that the things they are doing may have the worst consequences, though they may be considered totally normal. The examples could be: shouting in anger, offending the others or ignoring them. Why are not there death penalties for these things? (It is because everybody would be dead by now.) Is there any difference? All trees grow from relatively small seeds and in the end they may be even tens of metres high. A “small” bad act, a “bigger” one and another “even bigger” and in this way the borders are moving. People experiment with them. And it happens that they find themselves somewhere they never wanted to be.
DeleteAnother thing that Michaela said is that she does not believe that true closure can come only through forgiveness. (It is her opinion and she has the right to believe or not to believe.) But I do not agree with her. Imagine: you are angry and tell your friend ugly words. It is the easy way not so rare among people. But what if he then decides that he will avenge? There will be revenge. Will not you do something to him again; will not there be revenge on the revenge? Some people actually think that this kind of reaction is right, but if it went like this, with no forgiving, it could end up really unhappily. Is not it much better to take Priyanka Vadra's words: “I do not believe in anger, hatred and violence and I refuse to allow these things to overpower my life....”
I simply cannot agree with her [Michaela] about the closure. Somewhere the evil has to end. It will be either easy in a way with anger and hate rarely forgetting what the others have done to you or hard and tough with love and forgiveness. To forgive means to give someone a new clean paper, to let the person draw a completely new picture. No matter, what he has done.
From Diana Luptakova:
DeleteMiška almost expressed my opinion. I am glad that Slovakia is at least in something between the developed countries and that we can enjoy our right to live. Unfortunately India does not see it from our point of view and find the death penalty useful which I sometimes think it kind of is. Why? I don’t think that it is good to kill people but if I look at nowadays criminals I think our penalties are too soft. The serial murders are going from one trial to another for more than ten years and after that time no one truly cares except for the family. I cannot think of anything that would be more discouraging than the threat from death. My thoughts are inconclusive because I think that there is no uplift but on the other hand I don’t think that someone should be adjudged to death.
This comment is from Veronika Zrubáková:
ReplyDeletePrison, as a states' organ, has three main functions: to protect citizens from danger the prisoners represent, to punish the criminals and thereby threat people from doing the same thing and, most importantly for this topic, to give them the chance to reform themselves. This is what the state is supposed to guarantee - safety, punishment and chance for life for everyone. Having a chance to live and possibly one day start again, is absolutely harmless to others. However, there still are countries where death penalty is being imposed. Life, and all the chances that the person would have in the rest of it are deleted by killing the person. By taking someone's life, I admit, we guarantee safety - the criminal will never harm anyone. Despite this 100% certainity, I still believe that prisons are effective enough to protect the rest of the population.So in fact, the state does not fullfil it's main function - guarantee the best possible life for the citizens.
Moreover, the death penalty has tother big flaws and does not function as wanted. Often, people cannot be hundred percent sure that the accused is really guilty. And even if he is, it takes years and years until the execution. So the person is just waiting for the death. Indeed, we can see that the death sentence is pretty ineffective. So why is it still present? Why do some states kill people? The state cannot kill people just for revenge. Eye for an eye, and the system would collapse.
Murdering a criminal and reasoning it by the hope that 'the relatives of the victim will be happier when the guilty is dead' is irresponsible from the state. As was written, most of the times it does not make the family happier. We see the humanity in Sonia's family and the understandig. It is cruel to make someone suffer, just because of the revene, and the truth is, that killing the criminal does not affect tha victim's family in any way. But on the other hand, even if victim's relatives would want the revenge, it is morally wrong from the state to support this way of thinking.
Lastly, the consequence of sentencing people to death is legitimizing the act of murder. Killing people for killing people, as was mentioned, is hypocritical because the state does the very same crime and in this case it is all right. This seems as if the state was a litte bit two faced. If people realise this, there is not any authority which would show them the moral borders anymore. As if a parent tried to teach a child that smoking is bad while being a smoker. Well, obviously the child will see that cigarettes are all right.
Lastly, I agree that death sentence is wrong, and it is about time to erase it from the world society. Unfortunately, Sonia did not use the potential of the popularity of her case. It is a pity, because I believe the word is the most powerful weapom. And she was being listened to, so she should have done something to change the system she dislikes. Talk more, give speeches, show people the importance of this.
Veronika Zrubáková, 3. A
Sonia Gandhi. Such a heroin. I feel so touched. That is what I call forgiveness! The assassins killed her husband. But she still did not want to see them die. She wanted to see them rot slowly in prison for their whole life. What a character.
ReplyDeleteI would like to start with one important fact: Life in prison has to be bad. Prove for this statement are the homeless. There are a lot of them in every city, living from day to day, having a very tough life. But even though they have so hard, not knowing if they will have something to eat tomorrow, most of them still prefer uncertain life on the street than certain bed and food in prison. It is because prison is designed not to be a nice place to be in.
So when we know that life in has to be bad we can move on to the next point and that is how a life of prisoner with life sentence looks like. Imagine a prisoner who commits his crime in his thirties. Now he has to live maybe next fifty years in one cell. Can you imagine how it must feel like to be there and to know that you will never get out? Harsh environment, occasional beatings, just bad guys around. No escape, no purpose, no perspective, no future, no hope. I think that this is a mental torture which is horribly cruel.
Do not get me wrong. I do not think there should be no life sentences. Of course there should. The people who are sentenced to them deserve them. They should hold responsibility for their actions. The point that I am making is that sentencing person to life in prison is at the same level or even worse than death penalty. And that is what I hate about the movement against capital punishment. They act like life is some holy thing which cannot be taken from a person even though he did some horrible things. But to sentence the person to a miserable life full of anxiety with no dignity which a find one of the worst ways to torture a person mentally, that is totally ok.
I do not think it is totally right to take somebody’s life even if he did. Same as it is not morally right to imprison somebody for life. But we need to these things to set up an example for the other people. And we should choose between these two options on the basis of practical reasons like which one easier for state to execute and cheaper for taxpayers, not on the basis of moral reasons. I believe this because when we do not take religious and idealistic reasons into account but form our definition of morality on actual cruelty and pain caused by each of those two options we will see that capital punishment is morally no worse than life imprisonment.
It was hard for me to understand Roman because I think that everybody’s most valuable possession is his/her own life. Nature supplies us with a set of instincts and many other mechanisms to prevent us from premature death, to protect our body, life. Therefore we are “made” not wanting to die and we are able to do heroic acts in danger. Even in very bad conditions a man tries to do his/her best to survive.
DeleteMoreover, to be more specific, the statement: “most of the homeless prefer uncertain life on the street than certain bed and food in prison“, does not say that death penalty is equal or even better than life imprisonment. This statement or fact only proves that the homeless prefer living “on street” not living in prison. However, it does not tell us that prisoners who were awarded life imprisonment would like to end their life.
Furthermore, I cannot and I am sure that I am not the one who should decide whether life imprisonment is better or worse than death penalty but I agree with the original article that the right to life is unalienable and cannot be arrogated by anybody and anything. Consequently, everyone should decide about his own life. This means, according to Táňa, that a convict sentenced to life imprisonment should be offered death penalty as he/she may consider it better than continuing life combined with cruelty in prison and all other aspects I do not dare to imagine. Besides, killing somebody is one of the worst or even the worst crime and punishment for any crime should not be based on “an eye for an eye” principle.
All in all, also after reading Roman’s comment I do not see any reason for sentencing anybody to death. Additionally, I think that the death penalty should be abolished since anybody is allowed to take anybody else’s life even as a way of punishment for a harsh crime. Thus I consider Táňa’s solution as the least harmful. It says that if a prisoner is sentenced to life imprisonment he/she should be offered death penalty as well. This would make a sort of compromise also in such horrible situations that I hope to appear less and less frequently.