Christmas should always feel like love and warmth, but the last Christmas in Taiwan didn’t. On December 25th, 2023, a 15-year-old boy killed his schoolmate by stabbing him with a utility knife ten times. People were furious when the news came out, and they all thought that the murderer should be put to death.

I felt burning hatred for the murderer, and I wanted him to die in pain like the boy he killed. However, I questioned myself at the same time: People who commit serious crimes deserve heavy punishment, but do we have the right to take their lives? After thinking about it, my answer was no.

Understanding the background of the death penalty is important before diving into reasons why Taiwan should abolish the death penalty. Here is some information:

Capital punishment in Taiwan

The death penalty is also known as capital punishment. Japanese colonizers formally introduced and legalized capital punishment in Taiwan in 1895. During the White Terror, the government used the death penalty as a tool of oppression to control Taiwanese people, and it is still legal in Taiwan to this day.

Taiwanese people are advocates for the death penalty

Many Taiwanese people are advocates for the death penalty. They support its use for a variety of reasons. For instance, they believe that the death penalty helps deter crime. However, capital punishment cannot solve any problem, because it itself is a huge problem waiting to be solved.

The Taipei Times shared a statistic about how many Taiwanese people support continued use of the death penalty: 86.9 percent of respondents to a survey disagreed with abolishing capital punishment. However, most of the respondents are not aware of the issues surrounding the death penalty. They think that killing someone is justifiable. In order for Taiwanese people to understand the death penalty and issues surrounding it, they need education.

The death penalty does not deter crime more efficiently

One widely believed myth is that the death penalty helps deter crime. Statistics from The Death Penalty Information Center of the United States points out that homicides in states that abolished the death penalty are lower than the states that have the death penalty. Not only is the homicide rate lower in states without the death penalty, but the data also shows a downward trend in homicide rates when states do abolish the death penalty.

Furthermore, according to the Taiwan Alliance to End The Death Penalty, Taiwan executed 32 criminals between 2010 and 2015. The death penalty is expected by society to deter potential criminals through the threat of death, however severe crimes still happen. Taiwanese people believe that the death penalty helps stop crime. But obviously, these beliefs are wrong considering the statistics and research provided by both countries.

Capital punishment puts innocent people to death

Lu Zheng was a death row prisoner 27 years ago. However, the only evidence the police had for killing Lu Zheng was his confession during torture, according to the Storm.mg. The Taiwan Innocence Project carried out an experiment, trying to simulate the methods of how Lu Zheng supposedly killed his victim and dumped her corpse. However, the reenactment failed each time they tried, meaning that Lu Zheng’s confession wasn’t reliable evidence. Lu Zheng’s case is still open, but his life was already taken away by the irreversible punishment of the death penalty.

The rate of executing an innocent person is supposed to be zero percent, and the only way to achieve this goal is to abolish the death penalty.

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Even though most Taiwanese people don’t want to abolish the death penalty, it still should be. The death penalty not only raises the possibility of wrongful execution, but it also doesn’t help reduce crime. Most importantly, the death penalty itself is hypocritical: the death penalty is killing someone for killing someone.

People have to learn more about the death penalty and think more critically before they advocate for it. Because, as long as Taiwan uses death as punishment, we will be a less civilized country than we should be.