Death penalty

Death Penalty Before going to discuss whether death penalty serves as a deterrent to crimes or not, let us get a better understanding of what death penalty actually is. “ The death penalty is a term used to describe the act of putting a person to death, after judgment by a legal system” (McGuigan, 2011). Although death penalty is a very harsh punishment but it is helpful in reducing the crime rate in any part of the world. Death penalty injects a sense of fear into the minds of the criminals, which makes them think twice before planning to commit any sort of violent crime. Despite of the implementation of death penalty for violent crimes, the overall crime rate in the United States of America is still high because of different factors. The reason is not ineffectiveness of the death penalty; rather it is due to the unfair trials of the wealthy people. In some cases, financially strong criminals escape from the death penalty. Moreover, death penalty is only a deterrent to violent crimes, which makes criminals go for low-level crimes and those crimes, which do not come under applicability of the death penalty. Governments of most of the European and American countries, such as, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Canada have outlawed the implementation of death penalty as a crime deterrent, whereas in many Asian and African countries along with the United States of America, death penalty is still applied as a crime deterrent. I personally think that death penalty should be a legal punishment because it serves as a deterrent to many violent crimes. In case of youth, I think that there should be reformation instead of death penalty. However, if a criminal commits same crime again after reformation, he/she should be given the death penalty. References McGuigan, B. (2011). What Is the death penalty?. Retrieved from http://www. wisegeek. com/what-is-the-death-penalty. htm