Introduction
People’s behaviours are controlled by laws that ensure that they respect the rights of other people while enjoying the freedom granted to them by their constitutions. Those that cannot obey laws are punished according to the degree of their crimes. Criminal justice systems have established various ways of categorising crimes according to their severity and intentions.
Minor offenders face lenient criminal sentences while capital offenders face major ones like life imprisonment or the death penalty. This essay explores the suitability of the capital punishment as an effective way of deterring other criminals from committing heinous crimes. This punishment is an appropriate method of keeping capital crimes at bay due to the following advantages associated with it.
Capital punishment refers to all sentences that are granted to criminals to ensure they serve maximum time in prison. They include the death sentence or life sentences that are common in most developed nations. This is an effective way of punishing capital offenders and deterring other criminals from committing similar crimes due to the following reasons.
First, it is necessary to state that people fear death. In addition, they fear being denied the freedom to associate with their friends, family members and the public. Therefore, once they witness other criminals being sentenced to life imprisonment they will never wish to go through the same experience.
It is true that people learn from what their friends experience and thus criminals will not want to go through the same pain experienced by those who commit capital crimes. They will desist from committing these crimes and they may even stop their criminal activities. This punishment deters other criminals from committing capital crimes.
Secondly, this punishment ensures that criminals do not get in touch with the rest of the population. This means that other petty offenders and would be criminals will not be taught these crimes. It is necessary to state that bad company will not be entertained in the society since these criminals will be in prison or dead.
There will be no one to teach other people about these crimes. This will ensure that there will be no capital offenders or they will be less compared to if this sentence is not implemented. Socialisation is one way that young people learn different things from other members of the society. When a criminal is allowed lenient punishments, the person will go back to the society after serving their sentences and they will commit similar crimes again.
Lastly, this sentence is a punishment and not a rehabilitation project and once it is administered there is no way the criminal will come back to life. This means that the probability of a similar crime to be committed is zero. It is important to state that when a person dies the process cannot be reversed. Therefore, it has no equal and people will always tend to move away from people associated with murder and capital crimes. This punishment will ensure other criminals desist from committing capital crimes.
Conclusion
Capital punishments were designed to deter people from committing capital crimes like murder, robbery with violence, child molestation, and rape. The sentence discourages people from committing the above crimes since they fear death. It is a painful experience and criminals sentenced will never get opportunities to influence others to commit these crimes. Therefore, this is a good way of ensuring heinous crimes are not committed in the society.