{"id":91047,"date":"2019-07-03T17:12:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T00:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91047"},"modified":"2019-07-03T17:18:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T00:18:23","slug":"can-capital-punishment-justify-in-a-democratic-society-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/03\/can-capital-punishment-justify-in-a-democratic-society-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"CAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT JUSTIFY IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY? PART 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

In\nSri Lanka a widespread talking point or a gossip was, that originally abolished\ncapital punishment was re-established after the assassination of Prime Minister\nS.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, and the capital punishment was given to the\nassassinator, Rev. Talduwe Somarama was not the real assassinator, but some\nother person did it, and the exterminator disguised with the support of the law\nenforcement authority. This means that it is a quite difficult task to detect\nthe real criminals to give capital punishment and the best option is to\nconsider another method of punishment for drug criminals.  It does not mean that the system of justice\nshould ignore the offense, but to use an alternative strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\ncountries have controlled illicit drug problems using effective strategies and\ntechniques.  The Local drug problem in\nSri Lanka is basically related to consuming or use of the drug, which can be\ncontrolled by using multiple methods such as educating about drugs and harmful\neffects of drugs to individuals and the society.  Sri Lanka has a history of the small-scale\ndrug business in villages. Opium and cannabis business had been operated in Sri\nLanka since the beginning of human being in the country. Opium business had\nbeen operated in villages by small scale Indian businessmen, who illegally\nmigrated to Sri Lanka and used opium as a business device to quickly achieving\nenrichment.  Sri Lanka is not growing the\nplants which use to produce opium (Popi plant) or cocaine (Koki Plant).  Sri Lanka Politics and education in the\ncountry did not focus to control such business in the past.  Therefore, Sri Lanka has an ideal environment\nfor illicit drug and alcohol business and consumption.     In many countries, drug education is a\npart of the school curriculum and lots of resources are diverted to this\npurpose.  Sri Lanka needs a vigorous\ncampaign on drug education not only in schools but also to the young generation\nwho are out of schools. The government needs funding for advertisements against\ndrug in newspapers, radio, and TVs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nvital aspect of narcotics and illicit alcohol in Sri Lanka is that traditional\npeople treated cannabis as a medicinal plant and many Ayurveda doctors use\ncannabis and opium to produce medicines in various forms. History recorded that\nillicit alcohol used in the war between King Dutugemunu and Elara. Many\ntraditional employees such as toddy tappers, coconut husk removers, coconut\npickers, and many hard-labour workers had been used opium as a pain killer and\nsleeping chemical or a nerve agent. In the recent past, many Ayurveda doctors\ngot caught using cannabis and opium for making medicines for Asma and another\ncommon deceases.  In villages, women use\ncannabis to soften the village rooster’s meat. Religions did not address the\nissue.  Catholic priests appreciated with\nillicit alcohol producers and dealers who contributed funds for church\nfestivals.  Cannabis dealers associated\nwith Buddhist temples, many Muslim clergy associated with heroine dealers and\nreligious leaders reluctant to openly talk about narcotic and alcohol business,\nthe stand of religion now has radically changed and openly talk against illicit\ndrugs and all religions in the country have commenced drug education programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People\nshould be vigilant on drug traffickers. \nDuring the LTTE war people were highly concerned with explosive and\nsimilar way, people need concern on drug traffickers and inform about the\nsuspicious people to the law enforcement authority.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capital\npunishment from the point of views of religion may not be justified due to\nvarious points. According to Christianity humans are the creation of God and\nhuman have no right to make a judgment to destroy a creature of God.  This is a complex argument because human\nmakes decisions to destroy animal, plants, which are also creatures of\nGod.  Because some people do wrong\nthings, it doesn’t warrant to kill them. \nFor example, Adam and Eva believed to be the first human were created by\nGod and when they committed the original sin, God could have given a punishment\nto kill them and end human being in this world, but God never has done it.\nInstead of destroying creation, God sent own son (Jesus Christ) to this world\nto save human being sacrificing his life and to educate people to get away from\nbad habits and sins. Therefore, Christianity doesn’t agree with capital\npunishment for drug or any other kind of offenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddhism\nalso does not agree with capital punishment as a killing of a person regards as\na Karma, which is sorrow in metempsychosis transmigrating one life to others and\nBuddhism would not agree with the capital punishment. In Hinduism, it is a\ncontroversy, in terms of Bagawarh Geetha, if God has not sanctioned, a killing\na person is regarded as Karma. Islam also against killing people despite the\nfabricated Islam of new manipulators.  In\nthis religious background, capital punishment is not approved by religions in\nSri Lanka and the president’s decision for capital punishment for drug\noffenders would not be justified by any religion operating in Sri Lanka. Other\nreligions in the world, which are not mentioned here don\u2019t agree with giving\ncapital punishment to offenders.  All\nreligions in the world aim to redeem offenders from the way of reforming\nthem.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhad an opportunity to develop a program for correctional service officers to\nreform offenders in jails. I was financially supported by Australia and\nCanada.  It was highly successful.  In the jail environment, many prisoners\nopenly talked with me the causes to commit crimes and I found that various\nfactors contributed to committing crimes and came across that giving\ncompetency-based training to correctional service officers could successfully\nredeem offenders and remove the elements of wrongdoing from their minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nobserved that many countries have various programs with a view to reforming\noffenders and in the modern society programs aim at reforming drug offenders.\nDeveloped countries donate a considerable amount of money for programs\nreforming drug offenders. To be successful such programs, while strict\nrole-playing to detect drug dealers by the law enforcement authority and arm\nforces, the government needs taking responsibility to provide continuously\nhelping and monitoring different types of offenders who reformed and living in\nthe free society.  I found that the main\nweakness of the reforming programs was neglecting reformed offenders after the\ncorrectional service. Mainly many reformed personnel haven’t had the\nopportunity to find employment with a decent pay packet for living with the\nfamily.  There is no doubt that the\ngovernment cannot economically help reformed people for their entire life and\nthey need to adapt to reality.  The\nsecond important point is that reformed people should be treated equally like\nother citizens and they should be helped to gain employment consistent with\ntheir qualifications, experience, and skills or give the opportunity to gain\neducation and training to find employment like other citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrole after the reforming offenders especially drug offenders seems to be very\nweak and much-reformed personnel vulnerable to reengage in drug consuming and\ndealing as they are not gained a status of social civility or decorum in the\nnew environment.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS In Sri Lanka a widespread talking point or a gossip was, that originally abolished capital punishment was re-established after the assassination of Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, and the capital punishment was given to the assassinator, Rev. Talduwe Somarama was not the real assassinator, but some other person did it, and the exterminator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}