Death Penalty :: Get-Aware.co.uk

The Death Penalty

“Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfil that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others?”

Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General

In 2003, Governor of Illinois, USA, George Ryan, told 156 death row inmates they were not to punished by lethal injection for their crimes, just days before he left office. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2649125.stm It was a moment of celebration for anti-Death Penalty campaigners in the United States, which remains the only major Western nation to put criminals to death.

The Death Penalty is an ineffective and inhumane punishment. Time and time again, innocent people have been sentenced to death - Governor Ryan knew of 13 cases in Illinois since the return of the Death Penalty in Illinois in the 1970s. For more information on wrongful convictions, visit: http://www.cuadp.org/pris/pot.html

The punishment lowers the state - and therefore society - to the level of the criminal - and it is not a deterrent. What the Death Penalty has certainly proven to be is racist and biased against the lower classes.

You will find plenty of information through Amnesty International - one of the highest profile organisations that are anti-Death Penalty.

For specific Amnesty Death Penalty information visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/index.do.

But often you will hear - ‘but what if it was someone in your family who had been murdered?’ At first this may seem valid, but it doesn’t have to be this way. One of the most interesting and admirable organisations in the US is Murdered Victims Families for Reconciliation. http://www.mvfr.org/ This group, despite suffering tragic loss, find the will to campaign against the Death Penalty on the grounds that violence is not the answer to violence.

Some more arguments against the Death Penalty can be found at:
http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/5reasons2001.pdf