The fact that the death penalty is still enforced in a world in which there is increasing access to freedoms – such an important part of life – and in which a democratic perspective is now dominant, is one of the most terrible marks of shame facing mankind. No matter what their crime may be, sentencing someone to death is an unacceptably cruel and primitive. Punishment exists to discipline people, and the aim in present-day sentencing policy is to reform and reintroduce that person into society, but any possibility of that is removed when they are sent off to be killed.
