The Death Penalty is an extremely divisive topic, with many arguing that it is immoral or unjust, however, many areas would benefit from Capital Punishment being reinstated. The Death Penalty prevents dangerous offenders from reoffending and reduces spending on the prison system, amongst other factors.
Prisons in the UK are vastly overcrowded, so much so that the government has had to release prisoners early due to just not being able to house them. Whilst a solution would be to simply build more prisons, this is a costly and time consuming process, with the recent prison expansion plans estimated to cost between £9.4-£10.1 billion. A much simpler and quicker solution would be to subject dangerous offenders to the Death Penalty, removing those prisoners and making space for new ones whilst simultaneously removing potential reoffenders of horrific crimes. With the UK Government having recently released over 1000 offenders due to the prison population growing faster than they can expand it provides a truly damning image of the state of affairs in the Criminal Justice System. Alongside this, cases are increasingly being pushed further back due to a lack of availability in courts and the inability to be able to keep these potential new convicts in prison, enabling them to commit crimes whilst on bail for what they are accused of. The underfunduing and lack of organization withing the Justice System has led to drastic measures needing to take place, with Capital Punishment at the forefront.
Capital Punishment also frees up taxpayer funds. The punishment permanently removes a prisoner from the system, making it one less person to upkeep using the taxes and allows those funds to be spent in other places, such as schooling or transport services. In 2023-2024 the Ministry of Justice’s gross expenditure was £14.8 billion, with income at just £1.7 billion (meaning £13.1 billion was taxpayer money), and around 53% of that money going towards funding prisons. By introducing the Death Penalty you could reduce expenditure on prisons by there being less demand from prisoners for upkeep due to a lower population. It removes detestable human beings who are being kept at the cost of the taxpayer, despite the length of their sentence they are still being upkept by the general population and their hard work. Individuals like Lucy Letby, who notoriously murdered 7 babies between June 2015 – June 2016, are irreformable or have commited an act so reprehensible that they will be ostracized from society if they are released and, therefore, it is pointless to continue to pay for the maintenance of those people and would simply be easier to exterminate them. Why would anyone want to preserve the life of someone so deplorable at the cost of their taxes, despite the length of their sentence?
Capital Punishment is a net positive for society, despite protests of religious groups. Religious groups may perceive life as ‘sacred’, including a serial murderer who violated this principle many times. Consequentially, the idea conflicts itself. Why would those who violate the principle of the sanctity of life be allowed that same sanctity when being punished for their actions; someone who is intrinsically evil? They shouldn’t, they should be eliminated for the greater societal good as they do not benefit society in any substantial capacity and instead pollute it, by removing these individuals we can deter others from doing the same thing. Capital Punishment is essentially ensuring society improves by weeding out the worst individuals within.
Capital Punishment reduces spending on the Criminal Justice System and reduces the massive issue of overcrowding in prisons. It deters potential miscreants from committing crimes due to the looming fear of death and benefits society by removing those who are incapable of being kept within wider society.
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