Please help me correct my composition, thanks!

[Constance]

Hello everyone,

I have finished my English homework. Can someone help me to correct my essay? The topic is about presenting opinions with reasoning in favour of and against capital punishment. Thank you!





Have you ever watched a film called ‘Green Mile’? In the film, condemned prisoners are executed by electrocution. Some convicts are innocent, some repent of former misdeeds and some remain unrepentant to the end. Anyhow, they were sentenced to death at last. Although capital punishment has been removed from the statue books in Hong Kong, capital punishment is routinely practised in Mainland China. There must be some pros made Mainland China continue the practice, while Hong Kong abolished the punishment because of the cons.

The supporters of the capital punishment point out that it presents many advantages. First, death penalty is effective in maintaining public safety. Condemned prisoners are usually dangerous people – they may be murders or rapist. These dangerous people will impose a threat to the society if they return to the community. For example, Chan Li-fat who had 31 previous convictions dating back to 1979, had pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and two counts of aggravated burglary. It is obvious that he is a danger to the public. Effective steps should be taken to protect the law-abiding citizens.

Not only the victims but also their families suffered because of the crimes which criminals had committed. Sufferers’ pain cannot be eased only by giving a life time sentence to the criminals; death sentence can satisfy the need of victims’ families for vengeance. Murders, rapist and all criminals who are past forgiving should be executed; eye for eye, death sentence is what they deserved.

Capital punishment saves a great deal of money. Life time sentence will use many resources to punish convicts: We only deprive criminals of their freedom, but we need to provide them food and shelters. We are wasting taxes and resources to keep them alive. Capital punishment is more economic. We only need to use little coffers to achieve our aim, punishing the criminals who are wicked to the extreme, as well as reduces prison crowding.

As death is usually over-whelming to most of people, death sentence could lower the crime rates. Deprivation of freedom may not be as threatening as death. Only by imagining different ways of execution – hanging, electrocution, lethal injection, shooting and guillotining – many potential offenders might make a timely turn. Capital punishment can decrease the chances of bad influence and repeated offenses.

However, with the increasing concern of human rights, now much weight has been given to help prisoners become a new man. However important we may regard public safety and victims’ resentful feeling is, there is no gainsaying that one can correct one’s errors and make a fresh start. Unpardonable as a serial murderer is, one can improve oneself after receive proper treatment. It is widely believed that all human are good in nature. Practising capital punishment takes away a chance of correcting from the convict, which makes one can never be beneficial to the community anymore. Therefore, capital punishment should be abolished to avoid it hinders an offender review and correct himself.

The ways of carrying out death penalty are so inhuman. Make one fry to death by letting a large electric current pass through one’s body. Chop one’s head off by using the guillotine. Injecting lethal chemical to someone and let him die in pain. Shooting the convict to let him die because of excessive loss of blood. We charge the criminals to be cold-blooded and inhuman. Thus, tit for tat, they make someone suffer, so they need to suffer in order to compensate. Even though they are criminals, they have their own rights. No one has the right to take away others’ life, even the state. Capital punishment is so cruel and should be stopped.

Some people insist the condemned prisoners deserve death sentence. They should take the responsibility to what they had done, even if it is being tortured to death. It is true that they need to bear the consequences, but we should take positive actions to let them compensate. There is no point in killing the offenders. The dead cannot revive and the one being raped cannot reverse the fact. It is vital that government should put much stress on helping the criminals but not killing them.

What really counts is that chance of error does exist, what if the judge pass the wrong sentence? Nothing can do after one being executed. In England, Timothy Evans, a man with low educational level, had been sentenced to death because he gave statement unfavourable to himself. He was found guiltless many years after his execution. This case led to the abolition of capital punishment in Britain. Miscarriage of justice always happens because of unsound judicial system, racial discrimination, poor scientific technology and corrupted officials. In contrast, if Timothy was given a life imprisonment, he could be released and enjoy his life again. Hence, alternative sentencing rather than death sentence should be given.

In my opinions, capital punishment should be abolished and replaced by life imprisonment. It should be pointed out that the spirit of law is to protect the community but not punishing someone. It has been thought that many repeat offenders cannot change themselves and will only waste our resources. Unforgivable as the repeated offenders, we still cannot be a hundred percent sure the offenders are no use to the society. Very many of the things we need to consider, capital punishment creates lots of ethical problems and need to risk for miscarriage of justice. Then, why bother to continue capital punishment?