First
of all, people usually know that when someone has done something wrong or harm
to others, they will get punished. What is punishment?
Punishment is the way to
make someone suffer because they have done something wrong or in an illegal
way. Likewise, capital punishment is a death penalty for commitment of crime or
something that would harm to the other people and applied by government. Nowadays
many countries have been using capital punishment and many people usually
separate capital punishment to two criteria namely as a necessary deterrent and
uncivilized evil. Moreover, people usually think about capital punishment in
many different perspectives including religious, doctrine, culture etc. More
importantly, I will talk deeply about capital punishment in 4 types of topic
such as capital punishment in Cambodia, Pol pot regime, United States, and Doctrine.
To talk about capital punishment, currently there are 87 countries that have
completed abolish death penalty, while other country do not use capital
punishment. Interestingly, lethal injection, electrocution, gas chamber,
hanging and firing squad are the main of method that frequently use in capital
punishment. (Charlene Hall, 2012). With
one question in mind, is capital punishment a the necessary deterrent or
uncivilized evil?
United
States is one of the countries among the other that still practice capital
punishment but not in all states. In US capital punishment is a common law for
felony. Moreover, the most common method in recent decade is lethal injection.
As we can see that even the most developed country in the world still use
capital punishment for the necessary deterrent because they want people be
afraid of committing crime. That is why crime in US decreases from day to day
because of punishment and no corruption.
If we consider capital
punishment in Cambodia’s doctrine that related to Buddhism, we will think that
it’s really an uncivilized evil. Why? In Cambodia’s doctrine, humans are not
allowed to kill something or someone that has life even animal. In doctrine, if
you kill somebody, you will get sin in this life or in the next life.
Therefore, we can consider that capital punishment is an uncivilized evil,
which could be based on our Buddhist religious. In contrast, in our religious if
we only punish not to death, it should also consider to deterrent due to fact
that in our religious god always want to make people to become a better person
especially make them stop doing such a bad thing all over again.
Nowadays
Cambodia no longer practice the capital punishment in the country meaning that
when people did something wrong, there is no death penalty. People just get in
to the prison within a certain period according to the mistake that they have
done. If they did something very harmful like killing other people then they
will stay in the prison for many years. Specifically, the former Toul Sleng
(S-21) manager who killed many people during Pol pot regime has been sent to
the prison. Cambodia government did not give him a death penalty and people may
wonder why he hasn’t been killed, he made huge mistake to Cambodia people. Why?
According to the law of Cambodia, there is no more capital punishment in
Cambodia because the human right NGO in Cambodia, name LICADHO set the law to
avoid the country not to kill people when they committed mistake in the illegal
way. Don’t you think that by doing this Cambodia will increase in many crime?
The answer could be both yes and no. Yes, because without the capital
punishment that is a necessary deterrent, people will not be afraid of what
they have done in illegal way. They just think that no one kill them after committing
crime or action in illegal way. Additionally, some people will not be afraid of
going to the prison because some people are rich and they can make corruption
by using money to avoid of sending to the prison. Another answer is no,
government could set a strict law to make people fear of committing crime
instead of capital punishment and abolish corruption in the country. With this
problem nowadays, the crime in Cambodia has increased dramatically day by day
without any restriction law. In contrast, back to the past during Pol pot
regime capital punishment is very popular to Cambodia people. During that time
many Cambodia people has been killed cruelly by Khmer comrade. For this point, we
can consider that Capital punishment at that time is a necessary deterrent or is
an uncivilized evil. For this I am sure that it is an uncivilized evil capital
punishment because during the pol pot regime people have no mistake to give a
death penalty, so it is unfair to kill them. For foreigner, please do not
confuse that during the pol pot regime capital punishment is a necessary
deterrent. It is not that true. Until now people still not forget what happened
during that time. Thus, capital punishment could be an uncivilized evil to the
people.
All
in all, Capital punishment shows us in many way of thinking. I think capital
punishment could be both a necessary deterrent and uncivilized evil according to
type of religious for each country which some country practice and some other
country not. It also depends on their culture or customs of each country to use
the capital punishment. Not only this, it could be a necessary deterrent or
uncivilized evil depending on the way that they are thinking, it mean like
different people come up with different idea. Thus different countries usually
come up with different culture. So we cannot say for sure that capital
punishment is really a necessary deterrent or uncivilized evil.
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