Commentary on blog

Commentary on blog (Aw Mun Khay, 32/07)

Reference: http://theultimatefallacy.blogspot.com/

With reference to Aw Mun Khay’s blog article on “death penalty”, I generally do not agree with his arguments. He has taken an extreme stand that death penalty should not be abolished, given the reasons (as stated in his arguments) that death penalty plays a big part in deterring crime rate.

One of the arguments he made in his article is that “Singapore has the lowest murder rate per capita in the world, according to wikipedia and I am convinced that the death penalty has the ability to deter crime.” I disagree with his claim that based on the fact that Singapore practises death penalty and have the lowest murder rate per capita in the world, it would be sufficient to prove that death penalty has the ability to deter crimes. Statistics has proven to negate his claim, as shown in the online fact sheet about death penalty in US (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf). The fact sheet showed that despite having the highest number of execution, the South has the highest murder rate. On the other hand, the Northeast has the lowest number of executions and also the lowest murder rate. Not only that the use of death penalty is ineffective to deter murderers from committing the crime, the money involved in allowing death penalties is also much higher than sending criminals to life imprisonment, as stated in the fact sheet. Hence, the use of death penalty is ineffective in deterring would-be criminals from committing crimes.

In addition, other conditions besides death penalty in Singapore could have been the reason for the low murder rate. One significant reason could have been the presence of an effective government in Singapore. Singapore’s government is well-known for its effectiveness, bringing Singapore from a small unknown red dot in the world to a country that obtains many “firsts” in just over 40years. This showed Singapore’s government’s pragmatism in its governing of Singapore and could probably be the significant factor that accounts for the low crime rate in Singapore. Since death penalty is not a significant factor in the deterrence of crime, the use of death penalty should not be continued.

Furthermore, we should always remember that the act of execution (death penalty) is an irreversible action. Once it is carried out, it cannot be undone. Should there be any discrepancies in the judge’s judgment passed down after the execution, there is no way to reverse what has been done. Therefore, I am against the use of death penalties.