Nicholas Neighbors
09/18/09
1:56 PM
President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya announced that all death sentences would be changed to be life in prison sentences. Kibaki plans to abolish the death penalty, but first calls for a study to decide whether Kenya's mandatory death sentence for murder or armed robbery actually deters crime. In Kenyan law, armed robberies which include bank robberies with machine guns, to stealing a chicken using a stick, all all mandatory death sentences and even though the death penalty hasn't been carried out since 1983, the population continues to grow. In China, they hold the most executions, averaging about 5,000 last year. China's highest court recently called for the death penalty to be used less. In 2008, only 25 countries carried out the executions for that year. A woman in the article, named Grace Mokeira, was one of 4,000 convicted Kenyan's, she was arrested as a minor and charged for supplying information to a gang of armed robbers about the house where she worked as a maid. She hopes for a pardon.
Seeing the way other people handle the death penalty, and how ours is presented, shows me just how different cultures are. Where in America, if you steal something, or have an armed robbery, you might get a few years in prison, depending on how well you do, you might even get released early, but in Kenya, for carrying a stick and taking something will give you the death penalty. If that kind of death penalty were implied here, it would probably change a lot of peoples crimes, however, our jails would probably be even more crowded and people would probably revolt against any kind of law like that. I don't necessarily agree with the death penalty, and I don't believe the punishment for some of these peoples crimes have been rightfully judged.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-09-15-deathpenalty_N.htm?csp=34
No comments:
Post a Comment