Personally, I feel that capital punishment may not be all too necessary to deter crime. We can always have life sentences instead, offenders can be put behind bars for life and we can be sure that they can't harm people anymore. It is cruel for the government to take away another life after the what the convict has done, he should be given a chance to atone for his mistakes.
most of us would agree that a capital punishment should be given to a serial killer, rather than putting him/her behind bars. *i think its pretty obvious* but then, there are some cases where the murderer were given a second chance at life and given a life sentence instead,it's pretty much a tough fight at that. have anyone watched true files before?
compare a murderer and a serial killer. personally i think the serial killer would deserve death penalty straight away, s/he has done few too many killings which i don't think make the person feel remorseful. but as for a murderer,we might not know what caused s/he to react that way. that's where the investigation takes place.
i shall stop because i think i dont get what i'm trying to say. =/
It is true that for some cases it would be different. But have you ever thought, what good would it bring to kill him? Will the person he kill ever come back to life again? And now another mother has to bury her child, more unhappiness is resulted. Capital punishment for serial killer is not good enough, they should be caned and be imprisoned for life, and left to die in prison eventually.
Yenwei, though her son might have brought about the loss of other mother's son, it does not mean that the government has the right to kill him using the hands of the law. Because, what the government is doing is just as bad as what the killer has done. As much as we agree that what the killer is wrong, man should learn to forgive. No use harping over what has already been done isn't it?
If you would like to know, there are indeed many ways to atone for his mistakes, if he couldn't do anything to atone to the family directly, he can channel all his energies to other areas instead and do more meaningful things. What can be achieve if this killer is dead? Just the satisfaction of the victim's family.
Yenwei, what makes you think each and every one of us would agree with what you said? there's different shades of grey in between, different people see the different tones in different perceptives and i guess you're one who just see the color on it's own.
"In addition, what do you think that the murderer or serial killer can do to atone for his mistakes? They can't bring back the lives of the people they killed either" the 2nd sentence, that's what jolyn is trying to convey here. even though we pay back a life for a life, there's no way that we can bring back the murdered to life.
ok, lets put matters this way. put aside serial killers and/or murderer. say, motorists who ran over pedestrians, and cost the pedestrian his life. would you hang the motorist as well, because he killed the pedestrian. a murderer's stinct might be accidental, because WE dont know what makes the murderer behave that way.
perhaps jolyn's point, leaving the prisoner to die, that might be a good one. too bad they dont shoot the prisoners already, because then. they'll die a slow, painful and horrible death. by hanging, he dies instantly. this might sound sadistic, but i feel this way, the murderer has already atoned for his mistakes.
Yes i feel that is necessary for certain cases like murder or even serious crimes. however i feel that death sentences that are given to drug abuse is quite a heavy sentence as compared to other countries. i feel that kidnapping too shouldnt lead to death sentence unless the victim is being hurt. because i dont think death is necessary in this case. he can be life sentenced instead, while being behind the bars they can be made to do stuffs that contributes to nation building. in this way we can make sure the criminal will not be out there to harm anyone anymore and he will also be contributing to the country (e.g. made to do clean ups and all).
However, i do not think that capital punishment should be seen as "a life for life". cause i believe if we were the family of the victim, his lose of life cannot be compared with the lose of ur kinship. instead shouldnt we see it as the greatest punishment the murderer can recieve.
I feel that capital punishment is a must. If people are not punished the others might learn from them and the society will be corrupted. They themselves know that it is wrong to commit it, they still do it. If there is no capital punsihment, I could also just stab someone and run away taking as though nothing has happened. Without capital punishment it would be unfair to those family members who has lose their loved ones..
sorry ms chang! lion city oi is me. logged into another account hehh.
capital punishment for small cases. wow, i guess that would make people be more afraid to commit crimes eh. yuting, is it corporal punishment that you're trying to say? IMO, capital punishment for small crimes is insane, but nevertheless, it would scare the soul out of anyone who ever would want to rob etc.
on the other hand, heavy punishment should be imposed on murderers, so that they learn the hard way out. hmm, that's reasonable i think. but i wonder, if their good conduct will eventually get them released from jail earlier than the time they're supposed to serve. (which i think, by the time they get released, they would already be old and scruffy)
bleargh. here i go again after the whole chunk of what i wrote suddenly disappeared.
My personal opinion is that capital punishment is not necessary because i do not that it is the right of a human or a group of humans(a judge or a jury in this case) to determine whether or not to take the life of someone that they had nt given in the first place.
Of course,the convicted murderer/serial killer/etc had wrongfully made it his 'right' to cause harm or death to the victim/s involved.However,'an eye for an eye' which i believe is the principle that capital punishment is based on(other than to prevent the convict from causing any more trouble) should not be the reason why capital punishment exists.It is a very old-fashioned way of punishing a wrong-doer.If capital punishment was carried out with the hopes of appeasing the victim/s family,i believe that it would not in any way be beneficial to them in aiding the grieving process.Adversely,it encourages humans to seek vengeance for whatever injustice that has been done to them.Keeping grievances and seeking vengeance is a waste of time when there are other things in life to be fulfilled.
Taking another life does not replace the one or ones that were lost.The value of a human life is undefined. Alternatively,i believe that those convicts who committed heinous crimes like killing and such should be sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment or hard labour.This would be more beneficial to the society as a whole.
The point that I am trying to bring about is that capital punishment might not be necessary at all. Instead, as what shikin had said, they 'should be sentenced to life imprisonment' or be banished out of the country to do 'hard labour'. By taking another person's life might not really serve much of deterrence as people still commit those crimes. Why can't we adopt a more positive approach to punish crime-doers?
life imprisonment + they should be sent to mental hospital, locked up and tied up with those white cloth, like those you see in TV. If they go around killing people, something is not right up their mind. And banish out of the country = letting him go to other countries? and jolyn making him/her do "hard labour" ermm maybe quite tough. and jolyn making the serial killers do hard labour also means torturing him what difference is that compared to hanging him. The government is still doing something bad.
therefore i agree with captial punishments. since people know of such harsh punishments awaits them if they do wrong, they still carry on and do them, then they will and have to accept the punishments. On a lighter note, (this is a joke) if life imprisoning them and they are not doing anything worthwhile in the prison then the government is wasting their money feeding them and keeping them alive.
As what ms chang has mentioned, deterrence is an important factor. However deterrence does not means capital punishment. i believe life sentences can deter crimes too. Personally, if i am a criminal, i would rather be hanged to death than to be imprisoned for life. Imprisonment would mean no freedom, no privacy etc. whereas after being hanged u need not care about anything anymore. It is the criminal's family who experience the pain of losing their loved ones. It is like punishing the criminal's family too. And even if the criminal is being hanged, he/she might not even feel guilty towards his/her action. They might just feel worried and afraid of dying instead of thinking what mistake they have actually made. So what is the point of sentencing them to death? Just to take away the life of the criminal to make the victim feel justified? Or to serve as a warning to the public? But the criminal can just shake away all the responsible by being hanged. They might not even feel remorseful. After he/she dies, it is actually his/her family members who needs to suffer from being 'pin-pointed' at. On e other hand, life sentences allows the criminal to have time to think about their mistakes and by losing their freedom, they might realize the pain of not having their loved ones with them. (which is what the victim's parents are experiencing). Also, if they repent, by judging from their behavior in the prison, the juries might decide to have them they released too. By doing that, we're actually giving him a chance. As the chinese saying goes 'zhi cuo neng gai shan mo da yan'. So i feel that instead of capital punishment, we should have life sentences instead.
Yew Yong, by making him do hard labour, we can make the prisoner learn his mistake in a hard way. He would be constantly reminded of what he did and how he got himself landed at that state. Of course the government is not going to keep him in prison to do nothing and waste resources, as I've said my third post, he can do do more meaningful things. For example, if he's had a higher level of education, he can use his knowledge to help other inmates.
I believe that no man is born to harm others, but if ever they do. They might have done it out of desperation, by instigation, etc. They should be given a chance to repent, to turn over a new leaf and to teach others to not make the same mistakes as they did. With proper counseling, guidance and influence, I'm sure they would be able to understand and learn from their mistakes.
To many, justice is a moral principle. It is not about retribution and it is right recognized as inherent to our nature.
For the civilized society we live in, we cannot have everyone exacting retributions promptly, that would be chaos and it would destroy the civilization we have worked hard to build and live in. So we basically asked the people to withdraw their rights to exact retributions and endow the country's state laws to act on each person's behalf every time a crime is prosecuted.
A sentence cannot be done in excess of emotionality. All civilized societies recognized this problem and have attempted to control emotionalism and excess. The advice of punishing a wrong person is by carrying out 'an eye for an eye' logic. In the eyes of the law, it is not meant to be taken literally. After all, we do not want to imprison a child playing with matches that resulted in burning down a building, but we definitely would demand that sentence for an arsonist even though the result is the same. Now we tread into the area of legality.
For our society, that has convinced its citizens to withdraw their recognized inherent rights to exact justice. The country's state laws would carry out a fair judgment, with application of 'an eye for an eye'. But are there some crimes so terrible that despite our intellect only the capital punishment seems appropriate?
By morals, I do not have any objections with it. But there has been an increase of issues regarding jurisdiction. They include, state laws, money, other sentencing recommendations, etc. If it was fair judgment, then it would be alright to me. But how many murderers get life sentence or just get off because of how much money they have?
But nevertheless, I support the capital punishment for extreme crimes, but I choose to be more lax about crimes that don't have a negative effect on others.
And when I mean capital punishment for extreme crimes, I mean like the death sentence imposed on Saddam Hussein dated November 5th 2006. (Yes, the world is rejoicing! :D)
To Yew Yong, they do not have a choice in prison, so there is no such thing as they dont want to do this or that. They have to.
For most cases, the prisoner will regret what they have done and repent. Hearts are not made of rock, when their parents blame themselves for not raising up their child well, I believe they will truly learn from their mistakes. They wouldn't want to break their parents heart and be unfilial to them again.
For all prisoners, whether they are sentenced to life imprisonment or any jail sentence, if they behave well and cause no trouble, of course they would be granted an early release.
hi... i agree that capital punishment is necessary to criminal. we show the immense value of one’s worth when we punish a criminal.
punishment is justifiable for the benefit of the masses, such the crimes of these sorts will not be repeated and minimize.
just like in singapore when u smuggle over how many grams of drugs and u have DEATH panalty, and someone had died from that panalty, people would think twice to smuggle drugs.
32 Comments:
Personally, I feel that capital punishment may not be all too necessary to deter crime. We can always have life sentences instead, offenders can be put behind bars for life and we can be sure that they can't harm people anymore. It is cruel for the government to take away another life after the what the convict has done, he should be given a chance to atone for his mistakes.
most of us would agree that a capital punishment should be given to a serial killer, rather than putting him/her behind bars. *i think its pretty obvious*
but then, there are some cases where the murderer were given a second chance at life and given a life sentence instead,it's pretty much a tough fight at that. have anyone watched true files before?
compare a murderer and a serial killer. personally i think the serial killer would deserve death penalty straight away, s/he has done few too many killings which i don't think make the person feel remorseful. but as for a murderer,we might not know what caused s/he to react that way. that's where the investigation takes place.
i shall stop because i think i dont get what i'm trying to say. =/
It is true that for some cases it would be different. But have you ever thought, what good would it bring to kill him? Will the person he kill ever come back to life again? And now another mother has to bury her child, more unhappiness is resulted. Capital punishment for serial killer is not good enough, they should be caned and be imprisoned for life, and left to die in prison eventually.
Yenwei, though her son might have brought about the loss of other mother's son, it does not mean that the government has the right to kill him using the hands of the law. Because, what the government is doing is just as bad as what the killer has done. As much as we agree that what the killer is wrong, man should learn to forgive. No use harping over what has already been done isn't it?
If you would like to know, there are indeed many ways to atone for his mistakes, if he couldn't do anything to atone to the family directly, he can channel all his energies to other areas instead and do more meaningful things. What can be achieve if this killer is dead? Just the satisfaction of the victim's family.
Yenwei, what makes you think each and every one of us would agree with what you said?
there's different shades of grey in between, different people see the different tones in different perceptives and i guess you're one who just see the color on it's own.
"In addition, what do you think that the murderer or serial killer can do to atone for his mistakes? They can't bring back the lives of the people they killed either" the 2nd sentence, that's what jolyn is trying to convey here. even though we pay back a life for a life, there's no way that we can bring back the murdered to life.
ok, lets put matters this way. put aside serial killers and/or murderer. say, motorists who ran over pedestrians, and cost the pedestrian his life. would you hang the motorist as well, because he killed the pedestrian. a murderer's stinct might be accidental, because WE dont know what makes the murderer behave that way.
perhaps jolyn's point, leaving the prisoner to die, that might be a good one. too bad they dont shoot the prisoners already, because then. they'll die a slow, painful and horrible death. by hanging, he dies instantly. this might sound sadistic, but i feel this way, the murderer has already atoned for his mistakes.
Yes i feel that is necessary for certain cases like murder or even serious crimes. however i feel that death sentences that are given to drug abuse is quite a heavy sentence as compared to other countries. i feel that kidnapping too shouldnt lead to death sentence unless the victim is being hurt. because i dont think death is necessary in this case. he can be life sentenced instead, while being behind the bars they can be made to do stuffs that contributes to nation building. in this way we can make sure the criminal will not be out there to harm anyone anymore and he will also be contributing to the country (e.g. made to do clean ups and all).
However, i do not think that capital punishment should be seen as "a life for life". cause i believe if we were the family of the victim, his lose of life cannot be compared with the lose of ur kinship. instead shouldnt we see it as the greatest punishment the murderer can recieve.
I feel that capital punishment is a must. If people are not punished the others might learn from them and the society will be corrupted. They themselves know that it is wrong to commit it, they still do it. If there is no capital punsihment, I could also just stab someone and run away taking as though nothing has happened. Without capital punishment it would be unfair to those family members who has lose their loved ones..
I like the fact that there are different view points here.
And everybody, cool down!!! :)
Everyone has their own standards to which capital punishment should be practised.
some of you agreed that it should be practised on murderers while others specified that it should only be practised on SERIAL murderers.
I think it is necessary for the group doing this issue to define clearly what do you think capital punishment is necessary FOR?
Perhaps not yet. But for Discusion Cafe, this becomes very important.
After a person a committed a crime, there are several things a government can decide to do
1. Punishment
this is what weicong, yenwei, jingyang, zul,and to a certain extent, lion city (who are you, by the way?) have mentioned.
2. Rehabilitation
to correct a behaviour
angyi, xue li are taking this stand. give them a chance to correct their wrong behaviours
3. protection (of the public)
jingyang mentioned this -- to make sure the criminal is not out there to harm people again
4. deterrence
Serves as a warning to the rest of the society -- don;t do this or you will suffer the same fate.
am surprised no one mentioned this. or have I missed any point?
Every society tries to weigh each crime against the four points above.
weiteng has mentioned that drug trafficking perhaps does not warrant such a heavy punishment.
good observation.
perhaps, the spore government feels that point 4 (deterrence) is the most important is this case?
How do others feel?
sorry ms chang! lion city oi is me. logged into another account hehh.
capital punishment for small cases. wow, i guess that would make people be more afraid to commit crimes eh. yuting, is it corporal punishment that you're trying to say? IMO, capital punishment for small crimes is insane, but nevertheless, it would scare the soul out of anyone who ever would want to rob etc.
on the other hand, heavy punishment should be imposed on murderers, so that they learn the hard way out. hmm, that's reasonable i think. but i wonder, if their good conduct will eventually get them released from jail earlier than the time they're supposed to serve. (which i think, by the time they get released, they would already be old and scruffy)
bleargh.
here i go again after the whole chunk of what i wrote suddenly disappeared.
My personal opinion is that capital punishment is not necessary because i do not that it is the right of a human or a group of humans(a judge or a jury in this case) to determine whether or not to take the life of someone that they had nt given in the first place.
Of course,the convicted murderer/serial killer/etc had wrongfully made it his 'right' to cause harm or death to the victim/s involved.However,'an eye for an eye' which i believe is the principle that capital punishment is based on(other than to prevent the convict from causing any more trouble) should not be the reason why capital punishment exists.It is a very old-fashioned way of punishing a wrong-doer.If capital punishment was carried out with the hopes of appeasing the victim/s family,i believe that it would not in any way be beneficial to them in aiding the grieving process.Adversely,it encourages humans to seek vengeance for whatever injustice that has been done to them.Keeping grievances and seeking vengeance is a waste of time when there are other things in life to be fulfilled.
Taking another life does not replace the one or ones that were lost.The value of a human life is undefined.
Alternatively,i believe that those convicts who committed heinous crimes like killing and such should be sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment or hard labour.This would be more beneficial to the society as a whole.
The point that I am trying to bring about is that capital punishment might not be necessary at all. Instead, as what shikin had said, they 'should be sentenced to life imprisonment' or be banished out of the country to do 'hard labour'. By taking another person's life might not really serve much of deterrence as people still commit those crimes. Why can't we adopt a more positive approach to punish crime-doers?
life imprisonment + they should be sent to mental hospital, locked up and tied up with those white cloth, like those you see in TV. If they go around killing people, something is not right up their mind. And banish out of the country = letting him go to other countries? and jolyn making him/her do "hard labour" ermm maybe quite tough. and jolyn making the serial killers do hard labour also means torturing him what difference is that compared to hanging him. The government is still doing something bad.
therefore i agree with captial punishments. since people know of such harsh punishments awaits them if they do wrong, they still carry on and do them, then they will and have to accept the punishments. On a lighter note, (this is a joke) if life imprisoning them and they are not doing anything worthwhile in the prison then the government is wasting their money feeding them and keeping them alive.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Shikin and AngYi
Still focusing on punishment here.
perhaps, there is a very strong element of deterrence here.
Capital punishment could serve as a stern warning to others.
Yew Yong
your point on the government "wasting money" is valid.
there is an argument saying that government is spending too much on keeping prisoners. In fact, some prisons are over-crowded.
Jasmin's group: read up to find out more.
As what ms chang has mentioned, deterrence is an important factor. However deterrence does not means capital punishment. i believe life sentences can deter crimes too. Personally, if i am a criminal, i would rather be hanged to death than to be imprisoned for life. Imprisonment would mean no freedom, no privacy etc. whereas after being hanged u need not care about anything anymore. It is the criminal's family who experience the pain of losing their loved ones. It is like punishing the criminal's family too. And even if the criminal is being hanged, he/she might not even feel guilty towards his/her action. They might just feel worried and afraid of dying instead of thinking what mistake they have actually made. So what is the point of sentencing them to death? Just to take away the life of the criminal to make the victim feel justified? Or to serve as a warning to the public? But the criminal can just shake away all the responsible by being hanged. They might not even feel remorseful. After he/she dies, it is actually his/her family members who needs to suffer from being 'pin-pointed' at. On e other hand, life sentences allows the criminal to have time to think about their mistakes and by losing their freedom, they might realize the pain of not having their loved ones with them. (which is what the victim's parents are experiencing). Also, if they repent, by judging from their behavior in the prison, the juries might decide to have them they released too. By doing that, we're actually giving him a chance. As the chinese saying goes 'zhi cuo neng gai shan mo da yan'. So i feel that instead of capital punishment, we should have life sentences instead.
Yew Yong, by making him do hard labour, we can make the prisoner learn his mistake in a hard way. He would be constantly reminded of what he did and how he got himself landed at that state. Of course the government is not going to keep him in prison to do nothing and waste resources, as I've said my third post, he can do do more meaningful things. For example, if he's had a higher level of education, he can use his knowledge to help other inmates.
I believe that no man is born to harm others, but if ever they do. They might have done it out of desperation, by instigation, etc. They should be given a chance to repent, to turn over a new leaf and to teach others to not make the same mistakes as they did. With proper counseling, guidance and influence, I'm sure they would be able to understand and learn from their mistakes.
Jasmin
very logical responses!
good job.
And angyi
good response to yew yong too!:)
=)i concede .. but i have got a question.. what if the prisoner doesnt wants to be put into hard labour.. Eg u force him yet he dont move..??
and that he have no intention of regretting what crimes he had done..?? It will be difficult to change his mindset..
and also how long is the imprisonment? even if he knew his mistake and repent from it.. is he still stuck in the prison or will he be freed?
To many, justice is a moral principle. It is not about retribution and it is right recognized as inherent to our nature.
For the civilized society we live in, we cannot have everyone exacting retributions promptly, that would be chaos and it would destroy the civilization we have worked hard to build and live in. So we basically asked the people to withdraw their rights to exact retributions and endow the country's state laws to act on each person's behalf every time a crime is prosecuted.
A sentence cannot be done in excess of emotionality. All civilized societies recognized this problem and have attempted to control emotionalism and excess. The advice of punishing a wrong person is by carrying out 'an eye for an eye' logic. In the eyes of the law, it is not meant to be taken literally. After all, we do not want to imprison a child playing with matches that resulted in burning down a building, but we definitely would demand that sentence for an arsonist even though the result is the same. Now we tread into the area of legality.
For our society, that has convinced its citizens to withdraw their recognized inherent rights to exact justice. The country's state laws would carry out a fair judgment, with application of 'an eye for an eye'. But are there some crimes so terrible that despite our intellect only the capital punishment seems appropriate?
By morals, I do not have any objections with it. But there has been an increase of issues regarding jurisdiction. They include, state laws, money, other sentencing recommendations, etc. If it was fair judgment, then it would be alright to me. But how many murderers get life sentence or just get off because of how much money they have?
But nevertheless, I support the capital punishment for extreme crimes, but I choose to be more lax about crimes that don't have a negative effect on others.
And when I mean capital punishment for extreme crimes, I mean like the death sentence imposed on Saddam Hussein dated November 5th 2006. (Yes, the world is rejoicing! :D)
To Yew Yong, they do not have a choice in prison, so there is no such thing as they dont want to do this or that. They have to.
For most cases, the prisoner will regret what they have done and repent. Hearts are not made of rock, when their parents blame themselves for not raising up their child well, I believe they will truly learn from their mistakes. They wouldn't want to break their parents heart and be unfilial to them again.
For all prisoners, whether they are sentenced to life imprisonment or any jail sentence, if they behave well and cause no trouble, of course they would be granted an early release.
To jolyn, Its like saying "if u behave well, i will let you out of here but in the hard way." Suffer the punishments and you will be freed.
Besides the kind of crimes we are talking about now are those that are serious enough to get one a death sentence.
And after they repent and we allow them to be freed, how are they going to face the society? It wont be easy.. really..
everyone, read today's Straits Times yet? page 11.....
Jasmin's group
Read Daphne's last post.
Provides an overview to the whole situation. Also reiterates my earlier point.
The purpose of the death penalty is not just to punish. And even if it is, it is not merely "an eye for an eye" (like what Daphne mentioned).
Giving sentences to criminals serve other purposes too (refer to my earlier post)
Do you think the death of a criminal serves all these purposes?
hi... i agree that capital punishment is necessary to criminal.
we show the immense value of one’s worth when we punish a criminal.
punishment is justifiable for the benefit of the masses, such the crimes of these sorts will not be repeated and minimize.
just like in singapore when u smuggle over how many grams of drugs and u have DEATH panalty, and someone had died from that panalty, people would think twice to smuggle drugs.
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