To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Without capital punishment (the death penalty) our lives are less secure and crimes of violence increase. Capital punishment is essential to control violence in society.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

You should write at least 250 words.

You should use your own ideas, knowledge and experience and support your arguments with examples and relevant evidence.

Model Answer 1: [Agree]

Many people believe that the death penalty is necessary for serious offenders to keep our society safe and for the country to function and advance. While such punishments might seem cruel and inhuman to some, I sincerely believe that without capital punishment, our society will become unsafe for ordinary citizens and vulnerable to brutality and crime.

To begin with, our society has laws and punishments so that ordinary citizens can live without fear and violent individuals are kept away from creating havoc. Thus when we talk about a burglar who has stolen more than once, we have a prison sentence for such crime and he is given an opportunity to repent and come clean after he serves the prison time. However, when we talk about a pathological criminal who is a serial killer or has an obsessive-compulsive disorder to rape child, they are beyond correction and should never be allowed to be able to harm a single innocent soul in our watch. For such capital offences, we need to have capital punishment to make our society secure and safe.

Moreover, I believe that capital punishment is necessary as it is an effective deterrent of many major offences. According to many, the best method to keep crimes under a tolerable level is to show people the consequences of their misconducts and felonies. For example, many Asian countries, including Singapore, have controlled the drug trafficking and drug dealing by enforcing death penalties for such offenders. The result of it was astounding and all of those countries have alleviated the drug trafficking and drug dealing problems to a staggering lower level.

To conclude, despite some sentiments against capital punishment, I believe that it proves out to be the best method to make our society a far better place to live in.

Model Answer 2: [Disagree]

Many people believe that the death sentence is necessary to counter the violence and maintain peace in society. However, I believe that there are better alternatives to curb the crime rates and the death penalty is inhuman in a civilised world.

According to many, the death sentence is the only way to make an example to deter others from committing heinous crimes. They believe that serious offenders are like worms in a righteous society and should not be given a second chance. However, for both ideas- in and against capital punishment, several research works have been conducted, and the findings indicate on the contrary. It is interesting to note that countries that have implemented capital punishment still have a higher crime rate than those countries that have abolished it. Besides, I personally believe that we do not have the right to kill a human being as this would be another crime.

Thus it is only rational to suggest that counselling and educating criminals in prisons could be a great way to converts criminals to good human beings. Norway, where the crime rate is lower than most other countries in the world, is a great example of how proper counselling can change criminals. Moreover, we have to deal with the core factors of crimes and their backgrounds, give people economic freedom and tackle pressing issues in society to reduce crime rates. A society with a strong economy and educated members has lower crime rates and that is what we should be working on to achieve. Finally, we can replace capital punishment with life imprisonment for repeat-offenders and heinous criminals who are beyond corrections.

To conclude, persuaded by what has been discussed as well as compelled by what I have learnt and experienced, I would like to reiterate that capital punishment can not reduce the crime rate in the long run and it is inhumane to kill someone for his/her crime.