Our columnist this week is 22-year-old Leanne Wolstenholme, from South Yorkshire, who recently completed an National Council for the Training of Journalists pre-entry newspaper journalism course at Sheffield.

Capital punishment. It is an issue that many people voice their opinions about, me included, and is an issue of debate yet again with the latest executions in America. Is it a warranted means of justice, and where do you draw the line?

Clarence Ray Allen, 76, was the oldest man in California to be sentenced to death after 23 years on death row. Allen, blind, suffering from diabetes and wheelchair-bound, was jailed for the murder of his son's 17-year-old girlfriend over a burglary but was sentenced to death when he hired a hit man to murder a witness, killing two others.

Is it acceptable for an elderly man to be sentenced to death 23 years after he committed his crimes, and with his current state of health was it a cruel and undignified execution?

Allen's situation poses us the question how infirm does a human have to be before he is declared unfit to be executed? Must we insist on dragging a dying man to the execution chamber and pumping his body with chemicals to end his life that little bit sooner?

The man was elderly and infirm and would have eventually succumbed to his maker. It is cruel and unjust to sentence a man to death when he no longer poses a threat to society.

Sentencing someone to death for murder and then allowing them to continue with their lives, albeit behind bars for another 23 years, does not warrant the death penalty.

The punishment does not remedy a crime nor does it allow criminals to pay their debts to society. They should pay their reparations in other ways.

Take the execution of former gang boss Stanley 'Tookie' Williams. He was praised for his antigang books, earning Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

He too had been imprisoned on death row for almost a quarter of a century for the murder of four people. His highly profiled case was supported by celebrities including Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg claiming his innocence. For the past 24 years in jail he never admitted to the murders and campaigned against gang violence.

There has been much debate over his innocence but I believe that the work he has done to dispose of gang culture is commendable. Williams was paying for his crimes by serving life imprisonment but at least he was redeeming his actions by dedicating his life to removing gang culture from the streets.

Death sentences need to be re-examined and other methods of punishments implemented.

Life sentences should be imposed without parole in cases of first degree murder.

It is outdated in a modern democracy. It is understandable for countries to want to impose the highest level of punishment on those who choose to kill but a death sentence is no more of a deterrent than life imprisonment.

I have sympathy for those families who have lost loved ones to violent crime but the death penalty only creates more victims, causing a vicious cycle of violence that needs to be reconsidered.