Capital Punishment Deter Crime?
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Some armed robbers executed by firing squadCapital punishment, otherwise known as death penalty, is the execution of a person by the state as punishment for a crime. In this vein, crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The Advanced Learners’s Dictionary simply defines it as punishment by death.
This punitive measure derived its name and origin from the Latin word ‘capita,’ literally regarding the head which also in Latin means ‘caput.’ Thus, it is so called because a capital crime originally was to be punished by the loss of the head.
However, nowadays decapitation as a form of capital punishment has become obsolete and in its stead are electrocution, death by firing squad, gas chamber execution, hanging, lethal injection and stoning to death as sanctioned by the sharia penal code in some Islamic countries.
Capital punishment has, over the years, been used by virtually all human societies to terminate the lives of hardened criminals and political dissents as a way of curbing violent crimes and suppressing (political) mutiny.
This is a debate by a nigerian writer who discussed shariah laws and beheadings. to continue to read this article go to……http://www.tribune.com.ng/sat/09082008/spi_features.html
