Capital punishment should it be brought back

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Domestic workers are often unable to escape their employers treatment in the Gulf and Siti reportedly suffers from a mental illness. Regardless of the country, a fair criminal justice system does not mean an infallible one — errors can and do occur.

Even I was surprised by the facts on this one. A study done in California discovered that it was actually more expensive to execute a person than to keep them in jail for life. Often prisoners are woken with no knowledge they are to be killed, taken to a remote location, tied to a post and shot in the chest.

For hangings, people are sometimes strapped to a steel board to stop them moving as they are wheeled up to a noose. Governments often keep this information on executions secret, even to the point of loading some of the guns with blanks so no one definitively knows who in the firing squad fired the death blow. And when you get to the details it is simply vengeful and cruel.

There are a lot of people who have done horrific, unspeakable things, but modern societies should not join their ranks by also carrying out a murder.

People are judged by their actions, and killing another human being is about as profound as actions come. This knowledge give us an opportunity, a chance to ask our neighbours in the region to end this practice. Today, thousands of Australians will start a movement and light candles at vigils all across the country to end the backslide towards execution in Asia. An edited version of this story first appeared on news. Join our Human Rights Defenders program to help us abolish the death penalty.

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge that this land was and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land. What's new. Our history Our wins What are human rights? Donate Take action Fundraise for Amnesty. In , in Furman v. Georgia , the Supreme Court invalidated hundreds of death sentences, declaring that then existing state laws were applied in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner and, thus, violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of equal protection of the laws and due process.

But in , in Gregg v. Georgia , the Court resuscitated the death penalty: It ruled that the penalty "does not invariably violate the Constitution" if administered in a manner designed to guard against arbitrariness and discrimination.

Several states promptly passed or reenacted capital punishment laws. Today, states have laws authorizing the death penalty, as does the military and the federal government. Several states in the Midwest and Northeast have abolished capital punishment. Alaska and Hawaii have never had the death penalty. In , the high courts of Kansas and New York struck down their death penalty statutes as unconstitutional and the legislatures have yet to reinstate them. Today, about 3, people are on "death row.

We also believe that the death penalty continues to be applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. A : No, there is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws.

And states that have abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or murder rates. The death penalty has no deterrent effect. Claims that each execution deters a certain number of murders have been thoroughly discredited by social science research. People commit murders largely in the heat of passion, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or because they are mentally ill, giving little or no thought to the possible consequences of their acts.

The few murderers who plan their crimes beforehand -- for example, professional executioners -- intend and expect to avoid punishment altogether by not getting caught.

Some self-destructive individuals may even hope they will be caught and executed. Death penalty laws falsely convince the public that government has taken effective measures to combat crime and homicide. In reality, such laws do nothing to protect us or our communities from the acts of dangerous criminals. Q : Don't murderers deserve to die? A : No one deserves to die. When the government metes out vengeance disguised as justice, it becomes complicit with killers in devaluing human life and human dignity.

In civilized society, we reject the principle of literally doing to criminals what they do to their victims: The penalty for rape cannot be rape, or for arson, the burning down of the arsonist's house.

We should not, therefore, punish the murderer with death. Q : If execution is unacceptable, what is the alternative?