To Abolish the Death Penalty
張貼日期：Jun 25, 2010 2:6:51 PM
To Abolish the Death Penalty
Annie Hsieh
In recent years, the death penalty is a controversial issue in Taiwan. This issue has caused many people to argue it heatedly with different opinions. In general, people tend to agree that the death penalty should not be abolished in Taiwan. Because they may think that the punishment can reduce the crime rate effectively or the ethical conception is deep in people’s mind, they disagree to abolish the penalty. However, I think that there are some fallacies based on the false beliefs the majority hold. And I agree that we should abolish the death penalty, according to the specific statistics.
Why should we abolish the death penalty? I think that we can understand it clearly by the world trend. There are about 200 countries in the world. And more than two-thirds of the countries have already abolished the death penalty so far. According to the data from Amnesty International, the countries which have abolished the death penalty can be divided into three types. One is abolitionist for all crimes. It means that those countries have already abolished the death penalty completely. And there are 95 countries in the type, such as Albania, Canada, Australia, Nepal and so on. Another is abolitionist for ordinary crimes only. It means that those countries provide laws for the death penalty for some special cases, such as crimes under the war. And there are only 9 countries in the type, such as Brazil, Chile, Peru and so on. The other type is abolitionist in practice. There are 35 countries in this type, such as Kenya, Morocco, Gambia and so on. Those countries are a little different from others. They still have the death penalty but they do not carry out the penalty for over ten years. Nowadays, only 58 countries, including China, Cuba and so on, still have the death penalty. We can understand that the importance about respecting human rights has become stronger and stronger. How about Taiwan? Should we stay behind? I think the answer is “Absolutely not!”
Most people think the death penalty can reduce the crime rate. However, it is just a myth. For example, in Taiwan, the government brought up the policy about abolishing the death penalty step by step in 2000 until it stopped carrying out the death penalty in 2006. The rate of homicides was 5.1 (cases/one hundred thousand people) in 2000. The rate of homicides was 4.8 in 2001. The rate of homicides was 4.04 in 2006. According to the statistics of Taiwan’s crime rate from National Police Agency, we can see the crime rate decreases instead of increasing during the years. Therefore, do we need the death penalty to reduce the crime rate? Maybe we can think about it again.
Do we make the correct decisions all the time? I think that no one can promise it. So how can we ascertain that all the death penalties are fair and correct to be sentenced for criminals? There were 3682 criminals sentenced to the death penalty until July 1, 2000, in America. However, according to the research of Columbia University, the rate of erroneous judgments about those death penalties was 68%. And most of the criminals were forced to admit the crimes by some cruel methods, such as being banned on eating, or being interrogated for a long time. Since we can not promise that all the death penalties can be sentenced fairly in the future, we should abolish the death penalty.
Everyone is unique in the world. All people should have their own colorful and splendid lives, even though some of them have ever done the wrong things. Life is the most precious treasure and it is worthy to be cherished carefully by everyone. We shouldn’t deprive others’ living rights. Thus, we should advise and support the government to abolish the death penalty.