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Topics: Death Row, Health, World News, US News
Gerrard Kaonga
Topics: Death Row, Health, World News, US News
Amnesty International has listed six important reasons that they say improves their argument for why the death penalty should be outlawed.
While many countries in the world do not use the death penalty as punishment, some still use it as part of sentencing for certain egregious crimes - with the United States being one of them.
The death penalty is currently authorized by 27 US states, but controversy has recently been sparked following 'inhumane' executions using a new method called nitrogen hypoxia - which sees an inmate be suffocated to death by nitrogen gas.
Amnesty International, which has been operating since the 1960s, has once again called on the death penalty to be a thing of the past, regardless of the crime committed.
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In a new press release, they highlighted six key reasons why it should never be enacted and the many issues surrounding it in an established justice system.
The organization said: "The death penalty (also known as capital punishment) is the premeditated, judicially sanctioned killing of an individual by a state. It’s an irreversible and violent punishment that has no place in any criminal justice system.
"We oppose the use of the death penalty in every single case. No matter what the crime, who the alleged criminal is, or the method proposed to execute them – we will always stand against it."
Their first reason why they are against it insists that it violates an individual's human rights.
They stated that sentencing someone to death violates two crucial human rights guaranteed under international law, as established by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
These two rights are: the right to live and the right not to be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
Their second reason is a direct counter argument to comments made by those who do support corporal punishment.
Amnesty argued that having the death penalty does not actually deter crime, and they used data to support this argument.
They stated: “A 2012 report by independent researchers at America’s National Research Council of the Academies found that US states using the death penalty have a similar murder rate to states that don’t use it: the threat of capital punishment did not appear to prevent homicides.”
Their third reason is one of the most concerning aspects of the death penalty regardless of whether you do or don’t support it.
The organization highlighted that the death penalty is ultimately irreversible and mistakes are made during investigations for serious crimes that can lead to execution or death row.
They added: “Since 1976, 195 US death row prisoners have been exonerated completely for their crimes. Who knows how many have been executed for a crime they did not commit?”
As well as this, countries in the Middle East and north Africa have the death penalty and through flawed justice systems innocent individuals can be targeted and wrongly executed.
As well as these four main reasons, the organization also highlighted how the death penalty is often used in a discriminatorily fashion, targeting minority groups.
It can ultimately be used a political tool too, to silence those deemed a threat to the establishment.