ABSTRACT
The most convincing and most widely used argument in favor of capital punishment is that it acts as a deterrent. It may be said that the deterrence concept has been evident through the ages in Western thought concerning crime and punishment. Certainly one of the factors which restrains some people from murder is fear of punishment and surely, since people fear death more than anything else, the death penalty is the most effective deterrent. The prosecutors' argument for the retention of capital punishment is the State's right of self-defense. Society must consider what effect the abolition of capital punishment could have upon the philosophy of the youth of the country. And even the strongest opponents of capital punishment admit that it is necessary to provide the death penalty for murders committed by men under life sentences. This in itself is a complete admission that life imprisonment does not produce sufficient horror in the mind of the killer to deter him.
