Death penalty Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Death penalty - Research Paper Example While some people support the death penalty, others strongly condemn it. Some of the arguments in its favor are discussed below. This refers to a logical state-sponsored rejoinder to criminality, which is warranted given that once a crime happens; the victim is the state (Robinson, 2009). Cavadino & Dignan (2007) explain that retribution chastises the criminal in terms of â€Å"just deserts†. It focuses on the past events rather than on the future, and presumes that the penalty should fit the crime – â€Å"a tooth for a tooth†, so to say. Normally, criminals who face execution are those who cause serious harm to the society. A murderer for instance is executed with the validation that â€Å"two offences make a right†. Seemingly, the retributive argument is the strongest – when harmed, the government has a right to seek out justice with the intent of re-balancing the justice scales that the lawbreaker skewed to his or her benefit when he or she committed the crime (Robinson, 2009). According to Scott (2008), incapacitation is a philosophical justification of punishment that dictates that an offender’s physical capacity to commit a crime be removed (199). Those who hold this argument hold the view that death penalty takes away a criminal’s freedom in such a way that he or she is not able to perpetrate another offense – he/she permanently ceases being a menace to the society (Robinson, 2009).   Those who hold this view argue that once an individual initiates force against another guiltless individual, he or she has in reality declared that he or she does not conform to the principle of person’s rights. That criminal is not prepared to live among men as a reasoning individual – he or she only wants to live as a predator, to the obliteration as well as disadvantage of other beings around him or her. They also argue that rights result from a person’s nature of living as a rational being and if a person decides to live unreasonably, he or she is