Written by: Shashwat Paudel - 2022019, Grade X
Posted on: 05 April, 2021
After the barrage of rape cases in Nepal, anyone who is concerned about the situation may have thought about what would the situation be if there were capital punishment in Nepal. Many people have supported the claim that if capital punishment could be implied, there could be a drastic decrease in rape cases. Nepal has been suffering from an overwhelming amount of rape cases in the past years. There have been many measures against the problem and nothing seems to work for Nepal just yet. The worst thing is, the rape cases are increasing, rather than lower with the methods put forth.
What is capital punishment? Capital punishment is the legal and authorized killing of a criminal for a certain crime. Capital punishment is only announced rarely, often for serious criminal activity including murder, rape, and more serious activities. Capital punishment has its own history, dating back to the eighteenth century. Capital punishment was present in Nepal at the time of Ranas, though it was abolished after the restoration of democracy. Capital punishment may contain death by hanging, shooting, and many other options for the convicted to choose from. Contradictory to popular belief, capital punishment is a lengthy process. After someone has been given the death sentence, they have to stay on death row, which is a prison cell made for people who have been sentenced to death. The convicted has to stay there for 5-8 years before the execution day arrives. So, does capital punishment help deter crime rates? Not only for rape cases but for crime in general? The short and confound answer would be that it does deter crime. Think about it, why would someone ever even think of committing a crime when the consequence is as big as losing their life? If we were to stay on the surface of the topic, this would be the perfect solution to deter crime. But, data and analysis depict a completely different picture. Scientists agree that the death penalty has no deterrent effect in practice. This is, of course, backed up by studies and evidence. Taking an example of the United States of America, research shows that the states that don't have death sentences have lower murder rates than the states that have capital punishment. Apart from this, there have been claims that capital punishment does have a deterrent effect on a certain type of crime. Even after that, these claims/ studies have been deemed inconsistent and flawed. A lot of this is still under debate, and there is no way for us to jump to conclusions quickly, without concrete information and data. However, the available statistics suggest that it does not have a deterrent effect on crime.
So, the decision is upon the reader. Would capital punishment work for a country like Nepal?
In my opinion, even if capital punishment would be implemented in Nepal, it must be used for rare rare cases. Even after that, I believe it would not help the situation, as it does not have any deterrent effect. In my opinion, the people who would dare to commit a crime would not be thinking about the consequences even if it is losing their life. It seems as though this would work on paper but at the end of the day, not everything that looks great on paper is great on practice.
Source:
June 18, 2009, https://www.amnestyusa.org/a-clear-scientific-consensus-that-the-death-penalty-does-not-deter/#:~:text=Scientists%20agree%2C%20by%20an%20overwhelming,those%20that%20retain%20capital%20punishment.
