Should Capital Punishment Be Abolished

Capital Punishment is a widely debated topic, particularly in regards to the ethical and moral issues that surround it. However, there has never been a consolidated answer to the question of whether capital punishment is morally wrong, and therefore, should it be completely abolished.

Capital Punishment was completely abolished within the UK over a period of time; It was abolished firstly for murder in 1965, but it wasn’t until a little over 30 years later, in December 1999, that Capital Punishment was fully abolished for all crimes in Britain. However, to this day, Capital Punishment is still an active method of punishment within many countries, such as America, where 35 of the 50 states still practice the death penalty.

There are many different

The main reason is that, once this form of punishment has been carried out, it cannot be undone. For example, in January 1953, 19-year-old Derek Bentley went to the Gallows in London's Wandsworth prison after having been convicted of the murder of a policeman the previous year. Although the conviction may have been technically correct, it’s seen as totally unjust by most people that a person should be hanged for a crime that even the police at the scene said he neither did nor could have committed, as he was effectively under arrest at the time, after being caught for a robbery attempt. Bentley, however, wasn’t alone, as it was his friend Christopher Craig who fired the fatal shot, but as he was under 18 at the time, he couldn’t be given the same horrific sentence as Bentley and instead served just 10 years in prison. In effect, Bentley was sentenced to death because he was the older of himself and his friend, and because of Craig’s misinterpretation of “Let him have it [the gun].” For me personally, this is a prime example of the issues of using the death penalty as a form of punishment. This is because, Bentley was sentenced to death even though he wasn’t the one to fatally shoot the gun, but he was the one that had to pay the ultimate price. There are many moral issues surrounding this case, such as was it fair to give one a lesser punishment than the other? In my opinion, this case highlights why the death penalty shouldn’t even be an option as a form of punishment, as to me, it seems more like society needed to see ‘an eye for an eye’ in having Bentley sentenced to death to even up for the person that had been killed, even though he had no physical involvement in the death, they were just looking for someone to be able to blame and make an example of, a reoccurring issue of Capital Punishment and the main reason why I believe