Sunday, October 08, 2006

cycle of violence

straight from the heart
want to air my thoughts on the death penalty. this is one topic i have been thinking on for a long time. the more i think about it i feel that the death penalty is wrong- should be banned. the one argument i personally feel strongly for- we should break the vicious cycle of violence. by taking the life of an individual for a crime, the society is committing another crime. the message inherent in this to the people is we will take revenge- an eye for an eye... humans have to move ahead, banning the death penalty would be the right step- the civilized step.

9 comments:

beyond the sky said...

sir, but wat abt thousands of families who have lost their loved ones because of the individual who is responsible for the crime and is convicted...?
Will violence actually stop if death penalty is banned?

Tia Raina said...

but sir..you could argue that sometimes society doesnt learn unless an example is set before them. In which case, picking a scapegoat and making him/her face death penalty would actually serve as a warning to the masses, inhuman as this may sound. Even Dhananjoy was simply a scapegoat..how many others have managed to go free ...while he was specifically picked on. BUt the point was that the number of rape cases did go down right after his execution.

I feel the death penalty cant be viewed as very wrong only if
a.If capital punishment isnt doled out regularly...but in the rarest cases(as even stated by the SC).
b.The crime committed justifies the punishment.

But then again, who's to define what heinous crime actually 'justifies' death, as a punishment.

Tia Raina said...

See..i forgot my main point..which was..We cant ban the death penalty unless we find an alternative that makes the people sit up and take as much notice.

anonuy said...

but
“………..to be hanged until death for……..”These are the usual words used by the judiciary to disguise the brutal act. Generally capital punishment is limited to criminals who have committed highest degree of sins such as treason and murder. Though the courts and judiciary justify the capital punishment, aren’t they repeating the same act of murder in a legal way?’
An individual is made up of experiences and circumstances. It is absurd to terminate someone who is merely a result of his past and the society in which he lived. The aim of the judiciary is to ‘reform’ criminals – not to take ‘revenge’ on them by repeating the same brutal act. In other words “….as they couldn’t reform him, they terminated him.”
Judiciary states that ‘committing suicide is illegal.’ This statement can be interpreted as “an individual has no right to terminate himself.” So, how can judiciary take out an individual’s life where the individual himself doesn’t have a right to do so?

Sh'shank said...

sir I think your view could be read as neutral if and god forbid you were in a position to have felt the pain of something brutal done to someone you love.
I guess I am not equal to responding to whether or not I want Death penalty banned cause I haven't been affected either way.
but on a calmer note I would say ban it but when I hear how some murder has happened to a girl after she was defiled I would want that guy to go to the gallows...
but both the opinions are situational and anyone who can actually take the other side without experiencing the same situation is not being credivle in their opinion

Tia Raina said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Tia Raina said...

Good point Rahul...

Theoretically I agree with you. But if we all lived as idealistically as we spoke, then this would be utopia...and frankly, its not. Even as society changes, doesnt the government have to take charge of it in whatever way it can? Taking into light the recent hardships, which somehow seems to have made the world a harder place, people dont listen until something is pushed right into their face. If criminals are simply reformed(no matter how many lives they took away), wont people begin to think that the power of the government is in fact non-existent? In which case you could justify the death penalty by simply saying tha its the govt's way of stating that they are in command.
The simple fact is that violence is innate in human nature. It is impossible to say that if no criminals were 'terminated' any more, and no threat of this also existed.. then, looking at the big picture, would society run as smoothly?

And every single person is a product of their past and the society they lived in.The simple fact is that some people choose not to get influenced, and others either dont,or dont have enough guts to choose...doesnt add up. Would you forgive somebody who killed..say.. twenty people..just because he had to beg for food as a child? Would these peoples' families forgive him?
I guess the system doesnt exist to psychoanalyse the people...
(But then..dont we agree the system is crap anyway?..)

You're looking at this individualistically as it could be, I'm looking at the big picture as it is...
Correct me if I seem to have any warped theories anywhere.

Amitha said...

t2....well so how can u justify punishing someone because he did not have the courage or the will to NOT get influenced by his environment?? so ur argument abt the govt or the "system" not being there to "psychoanalyse" ppl is true....what is impossible for u as an individual is largely impossible for a group of ppl too...authoriy doesnt mean ppl turn into superheroes overnight...
sure by virtue of being in power these ppl have access to better resources and are in a better position to reach out to ppl..which alas they dont....
i agree there needs to be a system of fear...thats how humans operate...whether we like it or not it has hard not to accept the fact that fear is very handy in getting a sense of order..which is why i think the system "gallows" or capital punishment should exist.
n to answer another comment made by somebody else...i have lost a loved one in similar circumstances.....she was murdered for no fault of hers....
so i can tell u, that gets my blood boiling...but that is not THE reason i support capital punishment.
the perpetrators of crime in this case had a pattern n had murdered over 25 ppl in similar circumstances n were eventually nabbed...
so sir, if u tell me its not fair to hang these ppl, i'm sorry i will have to disagree.
but i do support the motion that in as many cases as possible reforms should be encouraged and ppl should not be hanged merely because we do not have enuf jails to support these "criminals"
but capital punishment shud exist for cases where necessary....where an act is so heinous that the person does not deserve redemption.

crumbs said...

sir, even though it true that we need to break the cycle of violence, forgiving a criminal or sentencing him for life, does not always achieve that. forgiving them does not necessarily mean that they will repend their actions.for all its worth, not sending them to gallows could just mean another hostage drama by their fellows to have them released- like it happened with the kadahar hijack.
forgiving IS the moral, n perphaps the right thing to do, but the question is, is that effective?and for how lond do we wait till it shows some results?havn't we been forgiving for too long already?and don't these criminals- terrorists, rapists, murderers, forfeit their right to live when they take the lives of hundreds, without so much of a second thought?
sneha