Buddhism does not advocate the death or mutilation of criminals as a form of punishment, because these actions in themselves are cruel, and create much negative kamma for those who enforce them.

Instead, Buddhism suggests reforming criminals so that they may become productive members of society.

This is interesting to consider.

In an ideal world, where we had enough manpower, resources and funds to reform every single criminal, this would be possible. Some criminals would need drugs in their "rehabilitation program" too - since there is scientific evidence to show that, especially for violent criminals, their actions may sometimes be linked to cognitive malfunction or damage (e.g. schizophrenia, psychopathic behaviour), which is in most cases treatable.

However, this is the real world.

It is not economically feasible - or so governments presume - to spend so much on something which might or might not succeed.

The problem is, never in history has there been any attempt at setting up a large-scale, scientifically-studied and endorsed rehabilitation or reform program, and until governments find some huge incentive to do so, there never will be.

The bottomline for would-be offenders now is, make a mistake, and that’s it.

And of course, of greater concern is, what if the person were innocent?

Buddhism understands that all legal systems are human institutions and thus fallible. Wrong convictions do occur, and they can occur anywhere in the world to anyone.

What then? If capital punishment had been dealt out, it would be impossible to justly compensate the victim.