Death Penalty: Need to find out why people kill (malaysiakini - letter)

Death penalty: Need to find out why people kill

Charles F Moreira Oct 17, 07 4:00pm

I refer to the Malaysiakini letter, Death penalty will not save our little ones. Perhaps the death penalty, which we already have and which will most probably be applied to those convicted of causing Nurin Jazlin Jazimin’s death will not deter such things from happening in the future but Amnesty International's solution, which reads like gobbledegook to me, misses issues of the value systems in our current society leading people to commit such heinous, perverted acts. Rather sociological studies should be done to understand why people do such things, including the stresses and alienation of urban life, acquisitive culture, the influence of pornography through the Internet and pirated DVDs and so on, and action needs to be taken to address these, even though it may mean a whole rethink of our development policy and competitive, capitalist society. Of course, achieving such changes under the present government may be impossible, so perhaps we need a different government, which will reverse the situation and move back towards a more humane and caring society of the past.