Saturday, December 03, 2005

Death sentence


Today's newspapers talk about 2 criminals that were recently executed. One is a young Australian drug smuggler, who was hanged in Singapore. Apparently he had tried to smuggle 400 grams of heroin from Cambodia to Australia (he was in transit when he was caught in Singapore). 420 people have been executed in Singapore between 1991 and 2004, which is a huge number.

The other story was about America's 1000th execution since 1976, a murderer who killed both his wife and his father-in-law in front of his two children. The story in Emirates Today claims that "Boyd (the murderer) was wheeled into the death chamber, strapped down on a gurney and injected with a fatal mix of three drugs".

I really think the death sentence is barbaric and should be abolished. Many criminals deserve to die of course, especially considering the severity of the crimes they commit, but I don't think it is up to us human beings to decide whether a person gets to live or not. I don't think it's right that we get to decide to kill someone, no matter how guilty that someone is. I don't think it's right that we punish killers by killing them.

I say, let these criminals rot in hell for the rest of their lives in prison. Let them suffer the pain of hard labor. Let them live the rest of their lives knowing that they will not be able to ever leave the confines of their prison. And if they ever get their conscience back, let them live with the weight of their guilt for the rest of their lives. But don't kill them. Don't commit another crime for the sake of punishing the guilty.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you on the death sentence. I also do not believe in torture. The only thing, is that those criminals have the good life in many "civilized" countries, and WE pay for it! No - i've never been in prison but I hear about them on TV. Take Karla Homolka - she was in a prison where women live in houses, organise Halloween, christmas and birthday parties etc. She bleeping helped to kill two teenage girls! What the beep is wrong with this picture ??? prison shouldn't be like F**ing summer camp!
ppppfffffffft!