CAPITAL PUNISHMENT – A MENACE TO BE RECTIFIED
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT – A MENACE TO BE RECTIFIED Punishment acts as a tool for inducing deterrence and setting a standard for preventing future crimes. The essence of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideology lies in hating the crime and not the criminal. To err is human however, heinous the crime may be. Murdering the criminal under the guise of a ‘heinous crime’ is criminal again as it initiates a never ending chain of crimes. It is like the great game of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Which invariable makes the whole world blind. Neither does it foster deterrence nor garners the sense of justice. It presents the criminal justice system as a mockery – a state machinery meant for state sanctioned murder. Here lies the irony. We have constitutional statutes which with social sanctions portray murder as a crime yet the state itself acts as a human slaughtering system for ‘preventing’ future crimes. Anton Chekov quipped “The government is not God. It does not have the right ...