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The Views
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"[the death penalty] is both cruel and unnecessary", "...the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil."
< Pope John Paul II - former leader of the Catholic Church
"I am completely against any form of violence...And in the case of the death penalty we are actually faced with killing that is decided and carried out by a country's justice system. I think this quite immoral and wrong."
< Tenzin Gyatso - Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist leader)
"The death sentence is a barbaric act… [It is]
a reflection of the animal instinct still in human beings."
< Nelson Mandela - former President of South Africa and Nobel Peace Laureate
"I cannot in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows. God alone can take life because He alone gives it..." "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
< Mahatma Gandhi - "Father of India", political and spiritual leader
"The state must not claim the right to take human life away, which belongs only to the Almighty."
< Vladimir Putin - Russian leader and noted liberal (not!)
"Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God."
< Martin Luther King, Jr - American Civil Rights leader and Baptist minister
"What you do to these men [on California's Death Row], you do to God."
< Mother Teresa of Calcutta - Roman Catholic nun & Nobel Peace Laureate
"With every cell in my being, and with every fibre of my memory, I oppose the death penalty in all forms." "I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the Angel of Death"
< Elie Wiesel - Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate
"The time has come to abolish the death penalty worldwide." "It is a violation of fundamental human rights."
< Archbishop Desmond Tutu - Church leader and Nobel Peace Laureate
[For more quotes visit: http://freenet-homepage.de/dpinfo/quotes.htm]
The Arguments
Most supporters of the death penalty believe that it is justified one or more of the following grounds: (i) as a means of retribution; (ii) as a deterrent to others; (iii) to prevent any danger of re-offending; (iv) because it's cheaper than keeping people in prison.
Opponents object to the death penalty on one or more of the following grounds: (i) killing someone is always wrong, and two wrongs can never make a right; (ii) there is no evidence of a deterrent effect (indeed the available evidence seems to show there is no such effect*); (iii) life without parole is just as effective a way to prevent someone reoffending as executing them; (iv) saving money can never be a justification for taking someone's life; and (v) mistakes are bound to happen, and that means people being put to death for a crime they didn't commit.
* [In the US over recent decades, for example, the murder rate has tended to be higher in periods of fewer executions, and lower in years when more executions have been carried out. But the murder rate in executing states tends to be higher than in non-executing states - while the homicide rate in Canada has closely tracked that of the US in recent years even though it abolished the death penalty altogether in the 1970's. More...]
More on the death penalty debate
Religion and capital punishment
Most supporters of the death penalty believe that it is justified one or more of the following grounds: (i) as a means of retribution; (ii) as a deterrent to others; (iii) to prevent any danger of re-offending; (iv) because it's cheaper than keeping people in prison.
Opponents object to the death penalty on one or more of the following grounds: (i) killing someone is always wrong, and two wrongs can never make a right; (ii) there is no evidence of a deterrent effect (indeed the available evidence seems to show there is no such effect*); (iii) life without parole is just as effective a way to prevent someone reoffending as executing them; (iv) saving money can never be a justification for taking someone's life; and (v) mistakes are bound to happen, and that means people being put to death for a crime they didn't commit.
* [In the US over recent decades, for example, the murder rate has tended to be higher in periods of fewer executions, and lower in years when more executions have been carried out. But the murder rate in executing states tends to be higher than in non-executing states - while the homicide rate in Canada has closely tracked that of the US in recent years even though it abolished the death penalty altogether in the 1970's. More...]
More on the death penalty debate
Religion and capital punishment
Books
Ethical Debates: The Death Penalty
by Kaye Stearman
This & other books on the death penalty are available from our online store (UK visitors click here).
Ethical Debates: The Death Penalty
by Kaye Stearman
This & other books on the death penalty are available from our online store (UK visitors click here).
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