Date: Friday, July 9, 2016
Participants (from 16 countries):
- USA: Rick | Argentina: Johny | Iran: Rose, Behnam, Hanieh, Elham, Mahid, Rojhano, Amir | Tunisia: Amin | Poland: Mario | Nepal: Grace | Sudan: Seif| Pakistan: Ayisha | Japan: Masato | Azerbaijan: Salima | Vietnam: Amina | Hong Kong: Tata | Italy: Ibrahim | India: Yusuf | Indonesia: Atilla | France: Djamila
Host: Rick
Co-Host: Johny
Teams
Panel PRO (Team A): Soso, Grace, George, Amin, Masato.
Panel CON (Team B): Mahid (Poincare), Rose, Hanieh, Mario, Behnam, Noorola, Ayisha.
Audience (Team C): Johny, Elham, Salavat, Salima, Amina, Seif.
Late: Tata, Ibrahim, Yusuf, Rojhano, Atilla, Djamila
Team A summary:
Soso:
Despite enforcing this measure, the crime rate has not decreased. The death penalty is socially unjust and ineffective. In order to deter people from committing crimes we should understand the reasons behind their crime in order to attack the root of the problem instead of killing the felon.
Grace:
We don’t have right to take anyone’s life. If we instead try to understand the person, to be treated by a psychologist or by some professional we may learn things from a sociological stand point and we may know how to make the new generation avoid doing the same things.
Even we beat our children when they do bad things, we feel bad about it and they don’t learn anything in that way; they still do bad things and moreover, they even become more aggressive and resentful. In addition to that, the message we give is that death is okay for bad behavior which is the opposite of what we want people to understand.
Killing the person is easy but giving a felon a new life and purpose is more meaningful and more inspiring. Never go for small things.
George:
“An eye for eye and a tooth for tooth”: People use revenge as form of justice. Legal justice is just a representation of what people want to happen to that criminal. People want the criminal suffer in the same way the criminal made the victim suffer so the courts solely seek to please the people.
Amin:
Judges are human and all humans could be mistaken and consequently terminating innocent people. People in power such as dictators oftentimes use laws in their favor and they manipulate the jury in order to execute their opposition.
Some people may not know what crimes should be punished by death and which ones should not.
Not being sentenced to death will give time and opportunity to the person to prove his/her innocence since it is known that the legal system is not perfect or infallible. Whereas if we sentence a person to death, and if with time it turns out that he/she was innocent, we won’t be able to compensate the loss or give his/her life back.
Masato:
Killing is not good. Killing the criminal is just taking revenge.
Team B summary:
Rose:
Not all criminals will be sentenced to death; the death penalty will depend on the crime. Forgiveness is better when the crime is not serious. If we ban it, in the end we will not solve the crime problem, besides, when the death penalty is being carried on legally in courts and specialized facilities, it not done through any kind of torture. Death penalty by the hands of the people is wrong and it’s also wrong for all kind of crimes but just when it’s done in the proper way by the proper system in the proper place.
Hanieh:
There are crimes that deserve this sentence. It can be used as example for the rest because no one would like to be hanged. It can also bring peace to the victims’ family.
Is being sentenced to spend some years in jail for a person who killed a child enough? What if the person killed 10 or hundreds of people? Is spending some years in jail enough?
People who committed a crime due to some mental illness or disorder are not being sentenced to death because these factors are already being considered in the courts.
For cases where people are being sentenced to death by a deficient infallibility in the justice system the solution would be to improve the system, not giving the real guilty opportunity to manipulate the legal system and be granted freedom after some years.
Mario:
It depends on the crime. There are crimes which sentences of spending a time in jail is not enough. There are people who kill innocent people and there are people who just don’t have humanity or empathy towards another human being and keeping them alive in jails, giving them food, shelter, a place for games and exercise is not the kind of justice people should be paying for. If a maniac has killed our daughters or sons and we have to pay from our taxes to keep them alive is justice, then there is something wrong with our sense of justice.
Keeping criminals in jails has a cost and it isn’t something that doesn’t affect us at all. Our money shall rather be spent on something much more valuable like the health care system or something that can help good people, not murderers.
Putting them in jails without a death sentence is also an opportunity for them to escape.
Behnam:
Death penalty comforts families and it’s beneficial for the society. Justice shall depend on the victim’s family. Capital punishment deters criminals to commit serious crimes. It’s a waste of money to put criminals of serious crimes behind bars and look after them till their natural deaths. What’s the point?
As for the number of crimes committed in a society, not banning it will neither decrease nor increase the crime rate.
Noorola:
Death penalty sometimes is right and fair. It’s not fair to spare his life when he has not spared the victim’s life.
A murdered not only kills the victim, his actions have a negative and painful effect on the victims’ relatives as well because he doesn’t only hurt one person, he hurts many people as consequence.
If people know that if they kill someone there is no death penalty, they will be more encouraged to commit the act because they will have the opportunity to be free eventually.
Ayisha:
Terrorists and people who commit mass murder of innocent people should be hanged; there should not be other option for them.
Team B summary:
Johny:
What is a fair punishment for horrible and brutal crimes? What fair is may vary from country to country and culture to culture. There are people whose dogmas and system allow them to take justice in their own hands, sometimes even on the streets. They don’t have nor do they want to have a secular legal system by which they can regulate citizens’ behavior.
As for the concept of “justice”… it would not be fair to sentence a murderer to a lifetime in jail because it’s not fair for the victim’s family nor is for the society who has to pay for the intern’s welfare and food.
Moreover, there is no jail or prison which has a rehabilitation program that can help interns to reintegrate into the society has cured people who have learnt what was bad in the first place. We just put them in jails and make them live there and they don’t learn like that. We actually give them time to plan their scape or time to show good behavior in order to get released after a period of time and in this way, they get away with their actions. So what is really fair?
Elham:
“Killing someone is killing his family as well.” Why didn’t the murderer think in this way too when he was killing the victim?
“George said something very nice but I wish we lived in a civilized world but what see around us demonstrate that unfortunately we don’t.”
As for the rate of crime decreasing if death penalty is abolished, just image we didn’t have it anymore, how would that affect the world? We ought to have something.
As for death sentences, we need to be careful to whom we give the power to decide it. We have seen many dictators who mass murdered millions of people based on their own laws or on the way they manipulate the laws in favor of their own interests. Even criminals can change.
Votes:
- Johny voted for team B.
- Elham voted for team B.
Team B won this debate. Thanks everyone for participating. Below are the links to listen to this discussion.
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