Death PenaltyStatistic show that 4.1 percent of inmates on death row are believed to be innocent. This is approximately 150 of the roughly 3,000 inmates on death row in America could actually be innocent and be sentenced to death for absolutely no reason. Canada should uphold the law and not allow the death penalty due to the inaccuracies of the criminal justice system, the immoral act by taking another’s life and simulated closure the family receives.Currently the Canada’s criminal justice system does not have the utmost standards like everyone believes. Canada’s criminal justice system just like US justice system has many fundamental flaws. Over 200 people in the last few years in the US have been removed off of death row because they were innocent.
This was due to DNA evidence or new evidence coming to light as time passes. Statistics also says that the death penalty does not in fact lower the crime rate in any US state. Homicides and murders still occur even with the death penalty in place. Racial bias is also a big factor in justice system.
People of color are statically punished more often than people of non-color. Thereby making the system ineffective in deterring criminal activities. United States’ legacy of slavery throughout the late 1700s and racial profiling finds continued abuse in the capital punishment system. The death row population, in US, is more than 45% black. That is nearly three times the amount of the general population. How can one say that the death penalty is a fair punishment at all? As people find it immoral to take someones life, why would be taking the killers life be anymore moral? It quite hypocritical, to say one thing but complete turn the other away. It is not only immoral for the people that want capital punishment but it is also disquieting for physicians, someone who is dedicated to help, aid, heal and even preserve life to suddenly be forced or be ‘peer pressured’ into taking someone’s life by executing someone that might be found innocent later.
The expert skill and knowledge of a physician should only be used to save lives instead of taking them away. Having mandates that a physician’s skill should be turned against the human race, it undermines the basic ethical foundation of medicine.Some people say that giving the ‘guilty’ a capital punishment would give the family closure but that is not true in any case. The thought of honoring a loved one by killing another human is not only counter-intuitive, but abhorrent. The death penalty brings the opposite of what loving family and friends need. They mostly need accountability, healing and closure. Although one of them might be met it will still keep the victim’s family stuck at an angry stage of grief.
Whether the family has lost a parent or a child during the incident, it is impossible to bring them back. They will need to be walked through that, slowly. Closure for the family does not have to be killing another human being or being in a consent state of revenge. Grieving is one of the best way to have closure. After grieving muster up enough strength and move on. Canada should not allow the dissolution and repealment of Bill C-84, whereas it states the abolishment of the death penalty. It is due to the fundamental flaws in Canada’s justice system, the lack of evidence in which capital punishment would lower the crime rate, the continuous racial profiling and racial discrimination, the immoral use of doctor or doctors to eliminate another human being’s life and being given the appearance of false closure.
It is to all of these reasons, Canada should not allow the reopening of capital punishment, the death penalty.