Writing Exemplification – April 2010 4
Level: Intermediate 1
Genre: Discursive
Should Capital Punishment Be Reintroduced to Britain?
Capital punishment is when someone commits a serious crime and his/hers punishment is death. I do not think that capital punishment should be brought back into Britain because people could be wrongly convicted of the crime and end up being killed for something they did not do. On the 8th November 1965 the British Government decided to abolish capital punishment.
Supporters of capital punishment believe that its reintroduction would act as a deterrent. The supporters have no evidence to prove that it would act as a deterrent as in Canada there was less murders after it was abolished in 1976. There was 701 in 1976 and 668 in 1984.
In addition to wrongly believing capital punishment would act as a deterrent, its supporters believe that it would save taxpayers money and stop over-crowding in prison. The average time in death row is eight years. The most common cause of death on death row is natural causes. Some of the prisoners on death row have spent more than twenty years there. In the United States of America there are two hundred and fifty new death row inmates every year. During Ted Bundy’s (serial killer) nine years on death row he cost taxpayers over $3 million to hear his appeals. Therefore I do not think the taxpayers should be paying for a criminal’s life on death row.
As well as falsely believing that the reintroduction of capital punishment in Britain would save taxpayers money, some people believe that the punishment should fit the crime. However, people think that it should not be brought back because in the Ten Commandments it says “Thou shall not kill” and other people think that two wrongs do not make a right.
Furthermore, capital punishment should never be reintroduced in Britain because of the number of miscarriages of justice. Since 1965 in Britain there have been thirty-two miscarriages of justice. On 28th January 1953 Derek Bentley was hung for saying “let him have it” to Christopher Craig, a sixteen year old, who pulled the trigger killing a policeman. In 1998 Derek Bentley was pardoned.
In addition, the methods used to carry out executions are inhumane. In 1983, a criminal convulsed and repeatedly jerked his head for eight minutes before dying in a gas chamber. Also in 1983 it took three charges of the electricity over a fourteen minutes period before death was declared for one criminal on the electric chair. In Texas, 1988 Raymond Lanely was being executed by the lethal injection. The line from the syringe burst and observers had to flee to escape the deadly chemicals.
Overall I think that capital punishment should not be brought back because of all the wrongly convicted people. If these people were just to be put into prison they could easily be let out if found innocent but if they were killed you cannot get them back.
[478 words]
Sources consulted:
Essential Articles 6, Carel Press, 2000
Essential Articles 8, Carel Press, 2004