Capital Punishment And Church Essays - Penology, Criminology

Capital Punishment And Church Crime is inevitably one of the biggest problems that faces the modern world today. It can be found all over the world, whether in large cities or small villages. Over time, society has tried to find ways to deal with crime. Such methods include community service, paying a fine serving some time in prison, and in the case of more serious crimes, the death penalty. This is the case in some states in the U.S. where persons have been executed for aggravated assault, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, sabotage and espionage. Advocates for capital punishment feel that it deters criminals from committing crime and that if the criminal is not executed, the risk later extends to the community as such persons may escape or be pardoned or paroled. Although believers in the death penalty feel that it deters people from committing violent crime and is a variable solution for protecting society , capital punishment is immoral, it cannot be proved to be a deterrent, it violates the principle of double effect, it is often applied with inequities, is condemned by the Church as heresy, and should be eradicated. Before an actual argument in favour of the eradication of the death penalty it is important to define what capital punishment actually is. Capital punishment is the execution of a criminal under death sentence imposed by competent public authority. It is derived from the Roman word, "caput", meaning the head, the life or the civil rights of an individual. Unlike the revenge of a single person, this penalty is a manifestation of the communities will to vindicate its laws and systems of justice. The death penalty was used in ancient times as well. The earliest historical records contain evidence of capital punishment. It was mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi, a collection of laws and edicts by Babylonian king Hammurabi that date from the first half of the 18th century BC. The Bible prescribed death as the penalty for more than 30 different crimes, ranging from murder to fornication "Whoever hits a man and kills him is to be put to death."( Exodus 21:12) The Draconian Code of ancient Greece imposed capital punishment for every offense. It also existed in the legal codes of the Ancient Middle Eastern Kingdoms. These codes commonly prescribed death for murder, religious and sexual offenses. The Israelites listed capital crimes as homicide, bearing false witness in a capital charge, kidnapping, insult or injury to parent, sexual immortality, magic, idolatry, blasphemy and sacrilege. During the reigns of King Canute and William the Conqueror in the 11th century AD, the death penalty was not used in England. However, the results of interrogation and torture were often fatal. By the end of the 15th century, English law recognized seven major crimes: treason (grand and petty), murder, larceny, burglary, rape, and arson. By 1800 more than 200 capital crimes were recognized, and as a result, 1000 or more individuals were sentenced to death each year (although most sentences were commuted by royal pardon). In the American colonies before the Revolution, the death penalty was commonly authorized for a wide variety of crimes. African Americans, whether slave or free, were threatened with death for many crimes that were punished less severely when committed by whites. In the early days if death was prescribed, the sentence was often carried out by stoning hanging, beheading, strangulation or burning at the stake. Today, there are different methods of execution such as the electric chair, the gas chamber, lethal injection or death before a firing squad. All of the methods of executions above are all highly immoral. Not only are they brutal and savage, but they are destroying the person's basic human good of life, therefore, violating the principle of morality or moral action. This principle states that when freely choosing human goods and avoiding what is opposed to them, one should choose in a way that does not directly damage, destroy or impede any one of the basic human goods in one's self or in others. The basic human good of life refers simply to the preservation of life and to various aspects of health, safety and the removal of pain. It is relatively obvious to see, that killing a criminal his basic human good is being destroyed. It is easy to say, it is easy to say "he/she is a criminal and deserves the death sentence", but he/she is still a human being, and Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves ?the creation of God', and it remains