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It has been a majoritarian belief that capital punishment leads to impeccable public safety and reduces violent crimes. This essay strongly disagrees with this notion and provides supporting facts and theories to disprove this belief. Historical research and criminology studies tell us that the amount of wrongful convictions for the death penalty as a result of lousy investigations is still a prevalent issue. Additionally, the inhumane measures of exonerating culprits can never be justified.
Wrongful convictions, in other words, death to the innocent, amount to no less than cold-blooded murder. The study of crime and investigation has proved that there have been numerous cases in different countries where an innocent person is being convicted for the death penalty due to inefficient evidence or inconclusive investigations. For instance, in the pre-DNA era, a lot of people were convicted purely based on circumstantial evidence and it is only after DNA evidence was put to test they were posthumously pronounced not guilty. In many cases, DNA evidence is not even retested since the person is long gone and no one is left to fight for their innocence. Even with modern-day DNA technology, there is always a margin of error that could wrongfully convict someone of something they did not commit and there is no bigger crime than that.
Modern-day measures of inducing the death penalties such as lethal injection, electrocution chair, or hanging are no way a person should seek death. Being in a powerful position does not give us the right to kill someone that too in an inhumane manner. In a study conducted by the Criminology depart of MIT University, it was noted that in certain cases the standard dose of lethal injection does not kill the convict and as a result, the dosage needs to be increased. This only prolongs the death and as a result, the person is kept under insufferable circumstances for hours until they are dead. This kind of methodology is unimaginable and cruel and no one should undergo such treatment.
In conclusion, I stand by my stance that the death penalty leads to no good and should be abolished. It does not leave a scope of rehabilitation to the convict who may have a chance of living a meaningful life in prison. Life imprisonment can be the only alternative to Capital punishment. As human beings, we have the right to live in dignity and also die with dignity.
