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There are several kinds of punishment available to the courts. In civil cases the most common punishment is a fine. For criminal offenses fines are also often used when the offense is not a very serious one and when the offender has not been in trouble before. Another kind of punishment available in some countries is community service. This requires the offender to do a certain amount of unpaid work, usually for a social institution such as a hospital. For more serious crimes the usual punishment is imprisonment. The length of sentences varies from a few days to a lifetime. In some countries, such as the Netherlands, living conditions in prisons are fairly good because it is felt that deprivation of liberty is punishment in itself and should not be so harsh that it reduces the possibility of the criminal re-educating and reforming himself. In other countries conditions are very bad. Perhaps because of an increase in crime or because of more and longer sentences of imprisonment, some prison cells have to accommodate more than they were built to hold.

In some countries there is also corporal punishment (physical). In Malaysia, Singapore, Pakistan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, among others, courts may sentence offenders to be caned or whipped. In Saudi Arabia theft and possession of alcohol may be punished by cutting off the offender’s hand or foot.

The ultimate penalty is death (capital punishment). It is carried out by hanging (Kenya, for example); electrocution, gassing or lethal injection (U.S.); beheading (Saudi Arabia); or shooting (China). Although most countries still have a death penalty, 35 (including almost every European nation) have abolished it; 18 retain it only for exceptional crimes such as wartime offences; and 27 no longer carry out executions even when a death sentence has been passed. In other words, almost half the countries of the world have ceased to use the death penalty. The UN has declared itself in favor of abolition, Amnesty International actively campaigns for abolition, and the issue is now the focus of great debate.

Supporters of capital punishment believe that death is a just punishment for certain serious crimes. Opponents argue that execution is cruel and uncivi­lized. They also argue that there is no evidence that it deters people from committing murder any more than imprisonment does. A further argument is that, should a mistake be made, it is too late to rectify it once the execution has taken place. In addition, while in some countries young people are not sent to pris­on but to special juvenile detention centers, in Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Bang­ladesh, Barbados and the United States children under 18 have been le­gally put to death.

The debate about capital punishment continues.

It involves the question of what punishment is for. Is the main aim to deter? This was certainly the case in 18^th century England when the penalty for theft was supposed to frighten people from stealing and compensate for inabilities to detect and catch thieves. Is it revenge or retri­bution? Is it to keep criminals out of society? Or is it to reform and reha­bilitate them?