Should Death Penalty Be Abolished In Australia

The Reintroduction of the Death Penalty into Australia

The death penalty and capital punishment are a controversial issue all around the world. Many countries have abolished such punishments, including Australia, but there is still debate on whether the death penalty should be reinstated in Australia. The death penalty is a form of final punishment that is needed in the society we are in today. There are many reasons behind why this form of punishment should be reinstated such as the overcrowding of prisons, the benefits of that come from executions and the way prisoners are treated in Australian prisons. To prove this thesis the subjects of the death penalties history, international neighbours who still use this form of capital punishment,

The death penalty was carried into Australia during colonial times from England as punishment for crimes such as burglary, forgery and sheep stealing. It was eventually outlawed in all Australian states and territories in 1973 when the Death Penalty Abolition Act was instated with bipartisan support (Law Council of Australia, 2015) ; “Since 1973 and the passage of the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973 (Cth), the death penalty has not applied in respect of offences under the law of the Commonwealth and Territories.”(Law Council of Australia, 2015, Pg. 19)Even though the death penalty was abolished in 1973 the last man that was ever hanged in Australia was Ronald Ryan on February 2nd, 1967 meaning the death penalty was not used often and only for extreme cases. The reasoning behind the abolition of the death penalty was because many prisoners on death row at the time were mentally unstable, no evidence had shown that the death penalty acted as a deterrent of crime and that innocent people may be executed (history.com, n.d.). The debate about the abolition of the Death Penalty started on July 3rd, 1922 when Queensland first abolished this form of punishment; other states soon followed and the last state being New South Wales having abolished the punishment in 1985 for all crimes as in 1955 the abolished the punishment for murder but

Arguments for reinstating this form of punishment are the over population of Australian prisons, the benefits of the death penalty and the advantages given to prisoners when they are meant to be being punished. The death penalty would be beneficial in many ways for Australia and should be