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Besides not being a deterrant to Crime, innocent people are being put to death
From Amnesty International:
Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty
1. Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries
Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Amnesty International's latest information shows that:
*
78 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes
*
15 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes
*
24 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions
making a total of
117 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
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78 other countries retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.
/snip/
Recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, the homicide rate per 100,000 population
fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year
before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to
2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further.
In 2002,
26 years after abolition, the homicide rate was
1.85 per 100,000 population,
40 per cent lower than in 1975. Ok - so where's the justification in ANY execution? :shrug: