Band 6+: Some people advocate the death penalty for those who committed violent crimes. Others say that capital punishment is unacceptable in contemporary society. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty and give your opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Recently, there have been clamor for the use of death penalty for individuals that are convicted of violent crimes. In the same vein, we have other people that disagree with this clamor, rather they believe capital punishment for any crime whatsoever should not be entertain in our modern society. I will be writing on both the advantages and disadvantages of death penalty and also express my own view on the matter.

Notably, one of the advantages of the death penalty as a punishment for violent crimes is the determent of further aggressive crimes by individuals in the society. And looking at it critically, it make a logical sense for a life to be taken for a life shed. When people know the gravity of the crime they are about to commit, it will stop them from going further in doing that. For example, the use of capital punishment has been used as reason for the low crime rate in North Korea.

Furthermore, another advantage of capital punishment is that it reduces the ample time needed by a criminal to get away with crime. There are a lot of corruption going on in the society and not using the death penalty gives people that have high connections and are wealth to get away with the crime they have committed. One notable case is that of Oscar Pistorius of South Africa. An athlete that murdered his girlfriend but was later released after spending ten years in prison.

Conversely, the use of death penalty can sometimes lead to a miscarriage of justice either knowingly or unknowingly. Innocent people might be implicated in crimes they did not commit and the hammer of capital punishment would have fallen on them before further evidence that will exonerate them surface. I remember the case of the popular ALUU 4. The four students that were implicated for armed robbery and later killed only to found out later that they were innocent.

Nevertheless, in as much as the use of death penalty will deter further violent crimes, it is still better to err on the part of one innocent person being spared even if evidence surface twenty years later than multiple guilty people being given the death penalty. With this reason, I will be opposing the use of capital punishment in our society.