The Death Penalty in Thailand

The Death Penalty in Thailand

Throughout the history of man, the penalty of death was given to criminals who broke the law. Capital Punishment is the extreme penalty for crime and is still in use today in many countries even in Thailand. According to the history, the death penalty in Thailand obviously appeared in Ayutthaya Empire and it has been used in the country until these days. There have been many debates on abolishing the death penalty for a long time in the country. The supporters of capital punishment often cite its roles as deterrent and retribution as reasons for their support of the death penalty. On the other hand, the opponents of capital punishment cite its arbitrariness as reasons for their opposition against the death penalty, it is said that this kind of action is barbaric and uncivilized. The existence of the capital punishment also brutalizes the community. Because the penalty of death can lead to an unequal application of justice so that Thailand should abolish this penalty.

Capital punishment, also referred to as the death penalty, is the judicially ordered execution of a prisoner as a punishment for a serious crime, often called a capital offence or a capital crime. In those jurisdictions that practice capital punishment, its use is usually restricted to a small number of criminal offences, principally, treason and murder, that is, the deliberate premeditated killing of another person. Since the capital punishment has been brought to use, people think that it should reduce the crime rate in the society. It is stated that the use of this punishment deters murder and other serious crime. This is what the supporters of the capital punishment believe. This view has been held for thousands of years. In the book The Penalty of Death, Thorsten Sellin states that as to the end or final cause of punishment, this is not by way of atonement but as prevention against future offenses of the same kind. In Thailand, although the death penalty is in use within the country, the crime rate is still relatively constant and it seems to be higher in the near future. This obviously shows in daily-newspapers which the criminal news appears very frequently. According to this consequence, it shows that even the capital punishment is used; it does not deter people from committing the crimes. Therefore, the use of this kind of punishment in Thailand is quite arbitrary; it does not have any effect on crime within the society. A punishment, to be justifiable, should only have a degree of severity which is sufficient to deter others from committing a crime. The death penalty is a less effective method of deterring others as opposed to deprivation of a person's liberty. On the other hand, Life imprisonment also achieves the same objectives that execution does by isolating the offender from society and depriving them of further opportunities to inflict harm on innocent citizens.

Furthermore, the supporters of capital punishment also argue that society must retaliate against criminals. They conclude that the best possible retribution against a murderer is capital punishment. Many people in Thailand believe the statement, 'an eye for an eye'. They think that when someone may have killed a loved one that the best thing for that person is to die also. People, nowadays, do not realize that they are putting the blood of another person life on their hands. This makes them just as guilty as the person who committed the crime, the only difference is that they do not use weapon except their mouth to kill them.

For those who support the death penalty, they think that the penalty of death is required for an imaginary society. This thought is completely incorrect; this kind of punishment can never be justified, it is destructive to society through its example of barbarity towards man. The death penalty has a brutalizing effect on the community, actually inspiring acts of violence or copycat crimes and thereby diminishing rather than increasing the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Beside, it may be argued that capital punishment is a means of achieving justice for the pain caused to the victim. Those who support the death penalty believe that, by allowing mass murders to live, the lives of all victims are devalued. In Thai society, the capital punishment has been allowed for a long time. Many Thai people are brutalized by this existence. Thai people are used to this barbaric action, they thinks that pain should be paid by pain and death is also paid by death. This thought is very strong and has been deeply rooted in Thai society. Like Phelps states in his book that people these days want revenge. In a civilized country, however, it is also unreasonable to engage in deliberate killing. Revenge should not be condoned by a civilized society. It cannot be legally or morally justifiable for the State to sanction and carry out vengeance killings.

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