Should Death Penalty Be Allowed in Our Country?
Since 1863, our world has being moved toward the abolition of the death penalty. However, there are still 106 countries that continue to execute the death penalty. Taiwan is also one of the countries that have allowed the death penalty. Though most people in Taiwan think that the death penalty should be allowed, I still stand by the abolition of the death penalty for two reasons.
To begin with, the death penalty could put innocent lives at risk because it is irreversible. Once the judge has convicted the death row prisoner, he may have soon been sent to be shot without hesitation. However, in some cases, we can see that some innocent people who have never committed the crime received unfair treatment. Some may even lose their lives because of execution of death penalty. For instance, in Taiwan, there was a case known as Jiang Guoqing’s unjust murder happened in 1996. He was accused that he raped and killed a five-year-old girl. During that time, he was forced to confess his crime and soon had been condemned to death. But it was not until fifteen years later that the case finally came out in the wash. In fact, there was another person who killed that girl. While the result had completely given him a chance to clear himself, it came too late to save his life. Thus, the death penalty may lead to a tragedy for one who is innocent.
Moreover, the death penalty does not deter crimes. Though our country has allowed the death penalty, we still cannot prevent crimes in our daily lives. Sometimes, the crime is happened again and again, even leading to other crimes. For example, there is also a case known as Tzeng Jai’s random homicides. In 2014, Tzeng Jai suddenly killed four innocent people in the Taipei MRT. I can still remember at that time I was shocked at all for his young age. He was just a mere twenty-year-old boy who originally had a great future to expect. However, by taking the wrong way, he had not only lost his life but also taken away other people’s lives. In my opinion, if there is any person who has paid attention to him or has ever been concerned about him, the tragedy may not happen. The death penalty is not the best way to solve the problem of crimes. The main problem is caused by the influence of society and education. In addition, after he was condemned to death, there was some people trying to imitate his behavior of randomly killing other people, thinking that it was cool. Therefore, the death penalty could become useless.
While the abolition of the death penalty now has been promoted drastically, some may argue that the victim’s right to life is also important. Undeniably, the criminal has his right to live, and so does the victim. For those innocent victims, they have their rights to lives, but all have been derived by the criminals. It is also unfair for victims’ families that they cannot choose but to accept the fact of losing their dear family. However, there is a different thought spoken by the 266th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. When Pope Francis (2016) was asked that should the death penalty be allowed, he answered that no matter how severe the crime was committed by the criminal, the death penalty “is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person.” It goes against the purpose of punishment. It can’t deter the crime; instead, it fosters revenge. Hence, although victims have their right to life, the death penalty is not the best way to solve this kind of problem.
In conclusion, for that the death penalty can’t reverse and deter crime, we should start to find out an alternative way to replace the death penalty. After all, the death penalty is not a long-term solution. Maybe we can choose to give the criminal a chance to testify. Once a released prisoner commits crime again, he must be sentenced to death.