When one is said to be given a death penalty, they are simply being told that they are going to be killed (murdered) in prison as a punishment for their crimes or actions. This is done through many ways depending on the laws of country which the sentence has been made or where a capital crime committed. There are countries that administer this punishment by electrocuting the prisoners. Others do so by injecting the prisoner with poisonous chemicals, others by hanging, others by suffocating, others by shooting the prisoner and many other ways.
Whether death penalty is the right mode of punishing criminals or not, is a question that has been debated by many people for years without any conclusion or consensus. Lawyers and the judiciary advocate for it while human rights organizations and some religions disapprove it. The question has been raised in many places; in the media, classrooms, discussions like this, in offices during tea breaks, in cafeterias during the lunch breaks, in conference rooms, just to mention but a few.
However, whether it is good or bad, the mode punishment is still being used in some parts of the world. Many people argue that this is not the best way to punish a criminal. They say that killing a person does not give him or her chances to rehabilitate. Prison and its facilities are meant to offer some form of rehabilitation for criminals and social misfits so that they become better people when they are released back to the society. If killed, a prisoner will never get a chance to prove him or herself. A death penalty is like we have finally closed the file of the prisoner. There is no chance that the case may be revisited just in case there is any possibility that the prisoner was not guilty. It is pronouncing a final judgement.
The society views the experience itself as traumatizing. When Sadaam Hussein was publicly hanged in front of television cameras, sparked outrage throughout the world and the scene disturbed a lot of people. When a person is made to live with a crime that they did, it is more painful and more effective than just killing them since the pain and the guilt die with the criminal.
The death penalty has not really done much to curb the criminal activities in most countries. The rate is still high and so it has only caused more pain and misery. Let us go for life imprisonment over death penalty. Beside that some criminals have nothing to lose when killed.
