
Critical listeners hear the voices of the youth and older people from various walks of life including different nations. What is very unpopular to discuss in the open in face-to-face conversation is honest attitudes surface when people can rest assured their views are kept confidential.
May it be based on the fact that hard right-wing parties are part of the mainstream and part of the political process in Europe and elsewhere, shocking cases of murder, or the increased number of True Crime TV series of domestic and international cases. Like in the past, each time horrifying murder and rape cases hit the public eye, secret or open demand for capital punishment is the topic of the day before dying out waiting for the next murder case to appear.
Critics and supporters of the death penalty agree a society without laws is a society in chaos. Laws without consequences are not worth the paper used to write them on. They equally agree that no one in their societies is forced to kill another human being but must honor life and the rule of law or face the consequences the law has laid out. Law-abiding is seen as the fundamental principle and need for a society in which the citizens have trust in the rule of law feeling safe.
Both sides agree that capital punishment does not eliminate killings. Evil in the world and people is real! To bring back murdered fellow humans is impossible. Family members of the loved ones murdered never forget the pain caused. Depending on their faith they manage to live with the loss of their brothers sisters, children, and neighbors. Killers behind bars in some jurisdictions leave prison after fifteen or more years in their isolated cells to continue their lives in freedom supported by social workers all paid for by the taxpayers. Families must pay for the funeral of their murdered relatives out of their own pockets and taxpayers ask themselves why they have to pay for murderers who die in prison the natural cause twenty or more years after the judgments.
In the USA convicts sit on death row for many years expecting to be executed at any time after a long legal battle or never but die of a natural cause in old age seen by many as a modern form of torture.
Most people think sentencing should be a deterrent to prevent more violations of the law, help criminals to be integrated back into society as good citizens, and bring justice and fairness to the affected people dead or alive. Murdered family members never come back. Justice must primarily be served to the deceased and in the second line their loved ones.
Anti-death penalty activists argue that the state has no right to execute anyone. They further highlight that potentially a person could be executed who later in life will be found innocent based on new evidence and the improvement of the forensics. They see the need to carefully examine the motive behind the killing and the way it was performed. Others argue the fact of the killing not the person or motive behind the murder must be judged. Only established beyond reasonable doubt the defendant is the crime suspect.
In different countries, capital punishment is imposed on people not only for murder. Some have abolished it completely others still have it in their book of law but agreed not to use it anymore. The rhetoric of right-wing parties in the Western World seems to open up the narrative that in a medium perspective this topic will slowly be raised again and take center stage. Time will tell!