Why I am against capital punishment ?

I am against capital punishment. Because of the moral issue- whether one murder can be compensated by another murder? Capital punishment did not deter anyone from committing crimes. There is not enough emperical evidence to prove that in countries with capital punushment have less rates of crime. Did capital punishment( 'legitimate' murder by the state) decrease the instances of crimes in the society? How do those who kill thousands go free in India and elsewhere ? How does political killing are seen as for a 'legitimate' cause? What is the difference between political murders and murders due to personal revenge or psychological reaction or aberration? Can a murder be compensated by another revenge murder? What happened to the thousands of women, raped and killed in Gujarat or elsewhere? Did they get justice? Did anyone even get a life-time sentence, let alone capital punishment?

The key issue is how do we understand 'crimes and punishment'. Those who commit crimes must be punished to deter people from committing more crimes- and to ensure that there is more peace and justice within a community.

In the history of the world, there has been many ways of killing people by the rulers ( from burning alive, to roasting, putting people in boiling oil or water to crucifying, stoning and injecting poison and shooting)- and the crimes did not decrease because of the manner of killing. If one person gets killed by another person, it is a crime. But when thousands gets killed through massacre or hate crimes, it ends up become statistics. When millions get killed in the name of war, it is seen as 'legitimate'.
As long as human beings are there, there will indeed be crimes and punishments'. We all need security, safety or peace - and it is the role of the state to ensure this to the citizens.

But human beings are strange creatures capable of killing each other, committing rape and murder and annihilating each other. Animals attack only for survival or out of fear. Human beings attack each other and kills each other not only due to psychological aberration and also as a political tool.

Those who abetting the murder of hundreds or thousand can be seen as 'heroes' in one context and even lead a party or nation state. Those who killed millions get celebrated in the history due to the the 'ideological affiliation'.

We all seek justice- from whom or what? Justice is merely about 'revenge'.? Justice is merely about killing one person to 'compensate' for the death of another person? Justice is simply based on perceptions and sensation in the media? What is justice? Whose justice? What are the moral compass that determine justice? Or is just a case of the 'feel' and the primordial human tendency to take 'revenge". Why does crime happen in a society? How does the rates of crime get reduced?

These are the questions that need to asked rather than reacting to the quick media mediation : that sensationalism of everything and anything without necessarily addressing the causes and consequences of the issue