hn E. Townsend, who led the Conservative Party for many years, is a strong advocate for bringing back the death penalty in Britain (Two). He says there has been a great demand in Britain for many years for a referendum in Britain so people would be able to vote just on the issue of the death penalty, which he says most of the ordinary people are in favor of. There is still strong majority support for the death penalty in Britain, with people believing in the biblical ôan eye for an eyeö and many of them feeling capital punishment is a deterrent. He says that when Britain did have the death penalty, criminals usually did not carry arms. While many say capital punishment does not deter criminals, he points to statistics that show the murder rate dropping in the United States after capital punishment was reinstated.
Townsend says that throughout Europe, conservative politicians and others on the right favor capital punishment, while socialists and other left-wing politicians are opposed, but at the man-in-the-street level, there are more Labor Party voters in Britain in favor of the death penalty (Two). He says this is because they are the ones who are the most common victims of violent crimes; they are the ones who get murdered, whose daughters get raped. The more affluent people living in the countryside donÆt actually come in contact with violent crime nearly as much. Amnesty International has shown a rise in support for the death penalty in Europe whenever there is media coverage of violent murders. Although many favor rehabilitation, Townsend points to several cases of murders being released from prison, only to murder again - a point brought out by Koch in his essay (Wood 716).
Many in America have been calling for the abolition of the death penalty because in recent years, a considerable number people who have been convicted of horrific crimes and sentenced to die have later been proven innocent and released from ...