Death penalty

Elinor 1026211017

Death penalty is a tool that putting a condemned person to death, because it is the most severe penalty system as a penalty. It is also known as capital punishment or life sentences.

Some countries like China, Japan, Korea, Cuba, and Egypt are still use the death penalty to punish criminals; they think it is a strong national means. On the contrary, some countries like Canada, France, Germany, and Greece have already abolished the death penalty for all crimes or abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes. And there is a kind of countries that for ordinary crimes such as murder retain the death penalty, but in the past 10 years, the practice did not do anything to death.

In many countries’ history, the death penalty existed, because the ruling classes needed a harsh punishment to maintain their rule. If someone does some things that threaten their interests seriously, they will use death penalty to punish the bad guys; it can also prevent others from committing a crime. However, with the changing times, many countries repealed the death penalty, on grounds of human rights. According to the survey data, “as of October 2004, a total of 81 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, 12 countries had abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes, 35 countries abolished the death penalty in fact, the three added with 128 countries”.

Canada is one of the countries which had abolished the death penalty; it is undeniable that Canada also made use of death penalty for a long time. “In 1967, a bill was passed that placed a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, except in cases involving the murder of a police officer or corrections officer. In 1998, Parliament removed the death penalty with the passing of An Act to Amend the National Defence Act to make consequential amendments to other Acts. In Canada, the abolition of the death penalty is considered to be a principle of fundamental justice. Canada has played a key role in denouncing the use of capital punishment at the international level. The Supreme Count of Canada has held that prior to extraditing an individual for a capital crime, Canada must seek assurances, save in exceptional circumstance from the requesting state that the death penalty will not be applied”. Base on these data we can know that Canada has abolished the death penalty for about 35 years; this may bring the result of the Canadians fight against the death penalty.

Capital punishment in China has a very long history. During feudal society, there are many kinds of death penalty which are much cruel and bloody than those we use, for example, they tied the prisoners to a metallic pillar which was

burning, burnt to death slowly. Or the executor of death penalty cut down piece of prisoner’s meat until they die. But nowadays, with the development of the penal systems, this kind of death penalty has been abolished. Capital punishment in China is currently administered for a variety of crimes. The Chinese government announced that “the country’s official policy on the death penalty is to prevent excessive executions and to use the law with caution. 68 offenses were once liable for capital punishment in China, as stipulated in the 1997 criminal law, but on February 25th this year, a newly revised law reduced that number to 55”. Among these are rape, people trafficking, corruption, murder, endangerment or national security and terrorism. The code also explicitly forbids the death penalty for offenders who are under the age of 18 at the time of the crime. Other measures include requiring all cases to be reviewed by the Supreme People’s Count.

“The Supreme Court of Canada has determined that Canada should not extradite condemned persons, unless they have assurances that the foreign state will not apply the death penalty. This is similar to the extradition policies of other nations such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Israel, Mexico, and Australia, which also refuse to extradite prisoners who may be condemned to death.”

“Amongst the reasons cited for banning capital punishment in Canada were fears about wrongful convictions about the state taking people’s lives, and uncertainty about the death penalty’s role as a deterrent for crime. A 14 years old boy named Steven was a significant impetus toward the abolition of capital punishment. He was sentenced to death for the murder of a classmate. His sentence was later commuted to a life sentence and in 2007 he was acquitted of the charges. While capital punishment has been abolished in Canada, a poll taken in 2011 found that as many as two-thirds of Canadians support capital punishment, although less than half of the country wants to see it reinstated. The poll results were similar to those of a poll taken in 1978. And regarding the death of Osama Bin Laden, a separate poll showed that 85% of Canadians believed the American actions were justified. “

Legal experts at the conference argued that China would need to limit the use of capital punishment when it ratifies the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and that abolition was the mark of a “civilized society”. But I think the most feasible way to reform the Chinese punishment system is to set up more long-term prison sentences. Chinese criminal law takes account of both cracking down on crime and maintaining human rights. The focus of reforming the punishment system is not to abolish the death penalty but to set up more long-term prison sentences, for example, 20 or 30 year sentences in order to reduce the use of death penalty. A survey last year found out that most serious criminals who were sentenced to life imprisonment actually stayed in

prison only for 15 or 16 years before being released.

Some foreign countries often attack China on human rights issues; they insisted that some rules like death penalty are violating the personal rights of citizens. Some foreigners consider that China’s penal systems are much bitter than other countries. It is no fair to the people who have committed a crime; they believe that even though the people have done some bad things or broke the law. Because of the different social system, cultural background and some other things, we have different opinions about death penalty, as Canada do not support the death penalty but China does. It is depending on a country’s history, development model, legal system, even the population and cultural background.

Many western countries think that abolishing death penalty is a right choice for a country and its citizens. However, is it really right and fair? As they said that everyone has his right to live, it is his individual rights that no one can deprive randomly. Now, we change another location to think about this question. The died person or the people who was deeply hurt also have their right to live and live normally, no one provide that they should suffer from these catastrophes. So, why can the prisoners can live safely after they broke the law; just change a place to live? From this, the people who against the death penalty can still think it are fair? Some people may think that everyone may make the mistakes, and we should give them opportunities to correct errors and then re-living. I can not say this is a wrong opinion, but in fact, a considerable part of the prisoners re-offending after they released from prison. When they in prison, they contacted some other prisoners, learned about some advanced methods of crime and police’s investigation techniques, so when they commit a crime again, the policemen would not arrest them easily, and they can have much time to hurt more people. So I think the people who have kill person or do some serious bad things that harm the national interest or cause permanent harm to others should be sentenced to death.

In my opinion, the countries that have already abolished the death penalty should recovery some death penalty. In connection with some atrocious prisoners, we can use the death penalty. As we know, Canada is one of the countries that have abolished the death penalty, Canadian criminal law is very compassionate, they think offense is the reason why criminals educated entirely the responsibility of society, so the spirit of the master criminal probation, and given the opportunity to rehabilitate offenders, rather than to punish. Although Canada’s lenient criminal law has brought the reputation of humanity, but which also does a lot of problems arising. Firstly, because of the lenient criminal law and has no death penalty, many foreign felon have fled to Canada to escape their harsh penalties, this situation makes Canada gets “criminal’s paradise” of the title. Secondly, for there is no death penalty, the

local criminals have nothing to fear, so they more and more bold and violent.

For Chinese people, the most impressive example of that is a business criminal whose name is Lai Cangxing. Many years ago, he have broke law in China, and the amount of crime can be sentenced to death, so he fled to Canada to escape the punishment of China’s law. And under the protection of the government of Canada, he spent many years living easy and comfortable. Until some time ago, after the Chinese government's solemn representation, he was repatriated back to China, and he will accept the trial of Chinese Court. This example is just a general one, there are still many “prisoners” living in Canada. If Canada still maintains the status quo, it will cause a global crime s crisis.

In China, there are 68 behaviors such as spying, buying, providing military secrets illegally, and smuggling, trafficking, transporting and manufacturing drugs can be sentenced to death. It can be seen that only serious crimes can be sentenced to death, if these bad guys still alive, they would endanger society and the state, resulting in significant irreparable loss. Some people’s suggestion is to make sure they stay in prison for at least 25 years and then release them. A criminal who is released at 55 normally will not commit a new crime. When the long-term imprisonment system is set up, judges will be less likely to resort to capital punishment. As a matter of fact, nowadays the methods of execution are much humanized than before, the prisoners can be dead comfortably.

There is a clear example can show us that the death penalty is necessary. A 21-year-old music student named Yao Jiaxin was executed this month for a particularly grievous crime: After accidentally hitting a female bicyclist with his car, Yao saw she was still alive, so he stopped, got out and stabbed her eight times to make sure she was dead and could not identify him. In a country with the world’s highest number of executions, the fact that Yao was sentenced to death was not uncommon. At least on the Internet, his crime was widely denounced, with citizens demanding Yao’s death

“A public broaching of a long-taboo subject here: whether China executes too many people too hastily. The government appears to be thinking the same thing. Last month, the Supreme People’s Court began implementing several new measures aimed at reducing the number of capital sentences. In China, executions are typically carried out swiftly and out of public view — traditionally with a single gunshot to the back of the head, but now increasingly by lethal injection. A handful of highly publicized cases, like Yao’s, are reported in the media, but the annual toll is not released and is treated as a state secret. But Amnesty International, which tracks capital punishment worldwide, estimates that China executes more people each year than the rest of the world

combined — as many as 6,000 people put to death in 2010. By comparison, according to Amnesty, the country with the next-highest recorded rate of executions in 2010 was Iran, with 252, followed by North Korea with 60, Yemen with 53 and the United States with 46.”

“Abolitionists acknowledge that the majority of Chinese still back capital punishment. But they also note that majorities in some European countries support the death penalty even as their governments have abolished it. Xu and other abolitionists say they hope Yao’s case will give new momentum to a cause that had for years failed to find much backing here. The government’s changing attitude toward capital punishment may reflect sensitivity to international criticism — and in this case, unlike criticism of its politics or economic policies, in an area that does not touch on the core ideology of the ruling”

In short, because of the different history and backgrounds, China and Canada have the different opinions and practices in death penalty. Everything has two sides, so we can not say which one is better, but we should know that with the development of society, both of them should be changing and developing, but the different things will always exist. I think that in the future, if the criminal law is going to be amended, the legislature might remove capital punishment as an option in punishing certain crimes.