Is The Death Penalty Effective?

Death penalty, also called capital punishment is the execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. This type of penalty was used is our country for 64 years, from the foundation of the parliament in 1920 until 1984. During this time, there have been some justified and necessary executions as well as people who were killed unjustly only because their opinions. Erdal Eren is a good and sad example of such a situation. Death penalty still remains a controversial subject that brings out a lot of different and strong ideas. While some people say that it is an unacceptable cruelty that can never be justified, others are very keen on bringing it back as a punishment. In this essay both of these ideas will be stated.

Firstly, many people think that deciding whether a person is allowed to live or obliged to die should not be up to other people and that it is completely against the basic human rights. They find it as a disrespect to human life and suppose that by ending their lives, executioners are restraining them from changing, understanding their mistakes and being a better person. They also say that without changing the mindset of the society, killing people won’t help preventing other crimes from happening. They also mention the not so guilty people who were killed because of a misjudgment especially after the 80 Coup. Death of the young people that did nothing but to express their ideas always remains a sad reality.

On the other hand, the people who think that the death penalty is a just punishment have their own reasons. They defend the death penalty because they think that a person who committed a serious crime such as killing or raping a child is a disgusting being and doesn’t deserve to live. These are generally the relatives of the victim that demands such a punishment and we can’t judge them for it. It must be quite hard to think of human rights when your relative is the victim of an unspeakable crime. Besides people also think that the execution of a criminal would be a good example to other people thinking to commit a similar crime and would scare them from doing so. They suppose that by killing criminals they would get rid of a bad person and in addition the crime rate would decrease. So, to them it is a win win situation.

When it comes to me, I don’t completely agree with either of the sides. I think that a person who with no doubt committed a serious crime deserves to die. Because if someone is able to kill or rape someone else in cold blood, I don’t think that they deserve the protection of the human rights, I don’t think that they are human at all. But with saying that, I also agree with people who say that innocent people would also die because of a misjudgment or the wish of the government. And I don’t think that our justice system is developed enough to punish the people who really are guilty and spare the life of those who are innocent. I think if this punishment was still in our constitution, they would start killing people who posted controversial opinions on Twitter. To sum thing up, I can say that I am not against the idea of death penalty if applied correctly but unfortunately it was never applied correctly and I don’t believe that it could ever be, especially in our country. So I wouldn’t want it to be available as punishment.

Irmak Üzüm