Death penalty (final version)

Nowadays there are nearly 100 states where death penalty is legal. According to Amnesty international approximately 18.000 people are condemned to death in XXI century and they’re condemned for very different causes like assassination, treason, sexual assault, adultery and other things. Death penalty is a topic which causes a lot of controversy, because people tend to define one’s position. On the one hand some people explain that when someone lose a friend, a relative or an acquaintance the only thing which can comfort him is to know that the murder is going to pay for it with his life. Other people defend that to kill the murder means he won’t be able to kill anymore because some prisoners, when they serve their sentence repeat the offense. What’s more, it’s known that to kill the killer is the fairest action which we can do.

On the other hand the defenders of human rights fight in order to abolish the death penalty, saying that death penalty goes against our most basic human right, the right to live, which must be respected in any situation. Another argument is the fact that the judge could get a wrong sentence, sentencing to death a person who isn’t guilty. They answer to these people who are for, would be to ask them: Is it fair to kill innocent people? What’s more fair: to kill someone who killed and make the mistake of killing an innocent, or try to forgive him which wouldn't turn us into killers?
What’s clear is that if we permit to kill somebody, we’re not very different to that person who is going to die. Everybody hates assassins but I want to believe that all of us can change, reform and start from zero. Is it fair to let a killer free? Well, if we’re sure that he isn’t going to kill anybody, it would be better than not lettim him live. Must the death penalty be forbidden? For me the answer is clear, the life of a person is more valuable than anything that we could imagine.

Aitana Bernabeu

2n batx. A