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Arguments for and against capital punishment in the |
Contents. If you are looking for information on the
situation in the
Background.
Capital
punishment is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment and since ancient
times it has been used for a wide variety of offences. The Bible prescribes
death for murder and many other crimes including kidnapping and witchcraft. By
1500 in England, only major felonies carried the death penalty - treason,
murder, larceny, burglary, rape, and arson. From 1723, under the “Waltham Black
Acts”, Parliament enacted many new capital offences and this led to an increase
in the number of people being put to death each year. In the 100 years from 1740 - 1839 there were a total
of up to 8753 civilian executions in England & Wales, the peak year was
1785 with 307. Remember that the population in 1800 was just 9 million.
Reform of
the death penalty began in Europe by the 1750’s and was championed by academics
such as the Italian jurist, Cesare Beccaria, the French philosopher, Voltaire,
and the English law reformers, Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Romilly. They argued that the death penalty was
needlessly cruel, over-rated as a deterrent and occasionally imposed in fatal
error. Along with Quaker leaders and other social reformers, they defended life
imprisonment as a more rational alternative.
By the
1850’s, these reform efforts began to bear fruit. Venezuela (1853) and Portugal
(1867) were the first nations to abolish the death penalty altogether. In the
United States, Michigan was the first state to abolish it for murder in 1847.
Today, it is virtually abolished in all of Western Europe and most of Latin
America.
Britain effectively abolished capital punishment in 1965 (for the full story of
abolition click here).
The USA,
together with China, Japan and many Asian and Middle Eastern countries, plus
some African states still retain the death penalty for certain crimes and
impose it with varying frequency. Click here for a
detailed list of abolitionist and retentionist countries.
Is capital punishment ethically acceptable?
The
state clearly has no absolute right to put its subjects to death although, of
course, almost all countries do so in some form or other (but not necessarily
by some conventional form of capital punishment). In most countries, it is by arming their
police forces and accepting the fact that people will from time to time be shot
as a result and therefore at the state's behest.
A
majority of a state's subjects may wish to confer the right to put certain
classes of criminal to death through referendum or voting in state elections
for candidates favouring capital punishment. Majority opinion in some
democratic countries, including the U.K., is still in favour of the death
penalty.
It is
reasonable to assume that if a majority is in favour of a particular thing in a
democracy, their wishes should be seriously considered with equal consideration
given to the downside of their views.
A fact
that is conveniently overlooked by anti-capital punishment campaigners is that
we are all ultimately going to die. In many cases, we will know of this in
advance and suffer great pain and emotional anguish in the process. This is
particularly true of those diagnosed as having terminal cancer. It is apparently acceptable to be
"sentenced to death" by one's family doctor without having committed
any crime at all but totally unacceptable to be sentenced to death by a judge
having been convicted of murder or drug trafficking (the crimes for which the
majority of executions worldwide are carried out) after a fair and careful
trial.
Let us
examine the merits of both the pro and anti arguments.
Arguments for the death penalty.
Incapacitation
of the criminal.
Capital
punishment permanently removes the worst criminals from society and should prove
much safer for the rest of us than long term or permanent incarceration. It is
self evident that dead criminals cannot commit any further crimes, either
within prison or after escaping or being released from it.
Cost.
Money is not an inexhaustible commodity and the government may very well better
spend our (limited) resources on the old, the young and the sick etc., rather
than on the long term imprisonment of murderers, rapists, etc.
Anti-capital punishment campaigners in the U.S. cite the higher cost of executing
someone over life in prison, but this, whilst true for America, has to do with
the endless appeals and delays in carrying out death sentences that are allowed
under the U.S. legal system where the average time spent on death row is over
12 years. In Britain in the 20th century, the average time in the condemned
cell was from 3 to 8 weeks and only one appeal was permitted.
Retribution.
Execution is a very real punishment rather than some form of
"rehabilitative" treatment, the criminal is made to suffer in
proportion to the offence. Although whether there is a place in a modern
society for the old fashioned principal of "lex talens" (an eye for
an eye), is a matter of personal opinion. Retribution is seen by many as an
acceptable reason for the death penalty according to my survey results.
Deterrence.
Does the death penalty deter? It is hard to prove one way or the other because
in most retentionist countries the number of people actually executed per year
(as compared to those sentenced to death) is usually a very small
proportion. It would, however, seem that
in those countries (e.g. Singapore) which almost always carry out death
sentences, there is far less serious crime. This tends to indicate that the
death penalty is a deterrent, but only where execution is a virtual
certainty. The death penalty is much
more likely to be a deterrent where the crime requires planning and the
potential criminal has time to think about the possible consequences. Where the crime is committed in the heat of
the moment there is no likelihood that any punishment will act as a
deterrent. There is a strong argument
here for making murder committed in these circumstances not punishable by death
or for having degrees of murder as in the
Anti-death
penalty campaigners always argue that death is not a deterrent and usually site
studies based upon American states to prove their point. This is, in my view,
flawed and probably chosen to be deliberately misleading. Let us examine the situation in three
countries.
Britain.
The rates for unlawful killings in Britain have more than doubled since
abolition of capital punishment in 1964 from 0.68 per 100,000 of the population
to 1 .42 per 100,000. Home Office figures show around unlawful killings 300 in
1964, which rose to 565 in 1994 and 833 in 2004. The figure for homicides in
2007 was 734. The principal causes of homicide are fights involving fists and
feet, stabbing and cutting by glass or a broken bottle, shooting and
strangling. 72% of the victims were male with younger men being most at risk. Convictions for the actual crime of murder
(as against manslaughter and other unlawful killings) have also been rising
inexorably. Between 1900 and 1965 they
ran at an average of 29 per year. There
were 57 in 1965 – the first year of abolition.
Ten years later the total for the year was 107 which rose to 173 by 1985
and 214 in 1995. There have been 71 murders committed by people who have been
released after serving "life sentences" in the period between 1965
and 1998 according to Home Office statistics. Some 6,300 people are currently
serving sentences of “life in prison” for murder. Figures released in 2009 show that since
1997, 65 prisoners who were released after serving life were convicted of a
further crime. These included two
murders, one suspected murder, one attempted murder, three rapes and two
instances of grievous bodily harm. The
same document also noted that 304 people given life sentences since January
1997 served less than 10 years of them, actually in prison.
Statistics were kept for the 5 years that capital punishment was suspended in
Britain (1965-1969) and these showed a 125% rise in murders that would have
attracted a death sentence. Whilst statistically all this is true, it does not
tell one how society has changed over nearly 40 years. It may well be that the
murder rate would be the same today if we had retained and continued to use the
death penalty. It is impossible to say that only this one factor affects the
murder rate. Easier divorce has greatly
reduced the number of domestic murders, unavailability of poisons has seen
poisoning become almost extinct whilst tight gun control had begun to reduce
the number of shootings, however, drug related gun crime is on the increase and
there have been a spate of child murders recently. Stabbings have increased
dramatically as have the kicking and beating to death of people who have done
something as minor as arguing with someone or jostling them in a crowd, i.e.
vicious and virtually motiveless killings. As in most Western countries,
greatly improved medical techniques have saved many victims who would have
previously died from their injuries.
Careful analysis of the situation in Britain between 1900 and the
outbreak of the second World War in 1939 seems to point to the death penalty
being a strong deterrent to what one might call criminal murders, i.e. those
committed in the furtherance of theft, but a very poor deterrent to domestic
murders, i.e. those committed in the heat of the moment. A very large proportion of the victims of
those hanged during this period were wives and girlfriends, with a small number
of husbands and boyfriends. So where a
crime was thought about in advance the criminal had time to consider the
consequences of their action and plan differently. For instance they may decide to rob a bank at
the weekend to avoid coming into contact with the staff and to do so without
carrying firearms.
America.
In most states, other than Texas, the number of executions as compared to death
sentences and murders is infinitesimally small. Of the 1099 executions carried
out in the whole of the USA from 1977 to the end of 2007, Texas accounts for
406 or 37%.
Interestingly, the murder rate in the U.S. dropped from 24,562 in 1993 to
18,209 in 1997, the lowest for years (a 26% reduction) - during a period of increased
use of the death penalty. 311 (62%) of the 500 executions have been carried out
in this period. The number of murders in 2003 was about 15,600.
America still had five times as many murders per head of population as did
Britain in 1997 whilst Singapore had 15 times fewer murders per head of
population than Britain. How can one account for this? There are obvious
cultural differences between the three countries although all are modern and
prosperous.
It is dangerously simplistic to say that the rise in executions is the only
factor in the reduction of homicides in the
Texas.
As stated above, Texas carries out far more executions than any other American
state (between 1982 and 2007 it executed 404 men and 2 women) and there is now
clear evidence of a deterrent effect. My friend Rob Gallagher (author of Before
the Needles website) has done an analysis of the situation using official FBI
homicide figures. Between 1980 and 2000,
there were 41,783 murders in Texas
In 1980 alone, 2,392 people died by homicide, giving it a murder rate of 16.88
for every 100,000 of the population. (The U.S. average murder rate in 1980 was
10.22, falling to 5.51 per 100,000 by the year 2000. Over the same period,
Texas had a population increase of 32%, up 6,681,991 from 14,169,829 to
20,851,820. There were only 1,238 murders in 2000 giving it a rate of 5.94,
just slightly higher than the national rate which had dropped to
5.51/100,000. In the base year (1980),
there was one murder for every 5,924 Texans.
By the year 2000, this had fallen to one murder for every 16,843 people
or 35.2% of the 1980 value. If the 1980
murder rate had been allowed to maintain, there would have been, by
interpolation, a total of 61,751 murders. On this basis, 19,968 people are not
dead today who would have potentially been homicide victims, representing 78
lives saved for each one of the 256 executions. The overall U.S. murder rate
declined by 54% during the period.
Therefore, to achieve a reasonable estimate of actual lives saved, we
must multiply 19,968 by 0.54 giving a more realistic figure of 10,783 lives
saved or 42 lives per execution. Even if this estimate was off by a factor of
10 (which is highly unlikely), there would still be over 1,000 innocent lives
saved or 4 lives per execution. One can see a drop in the number of murders in
1983, the year after Charlie Brooks became the first person to be executed by
lethal injection in America.
In 2000, Texas had 1,238 murders (an average of 23.8 murders per week), but in
2001 only 31 people were given the death sentence and 17 prisoners executed
(down from 40 the previous year). This equates to a capital sentencing rate of
2.5% or one death sentence for every 40 murders.
Singapore.
Singapore always carries out death sentences where the appeal has been turned
down, so its population knows precisely what will happen to them if they are
convicted of murder or drug trafficking - is this concept deeply embedded into
the sub-consciousness of most of its people, acting as an effective deterrent?
In 1995, Singapore hanged an unusually large number of 7 murderers with 4 in
1996, 3 in 1997 and only one in 1998 rising to 6 in 1999 (3 for the same
murder). Singapore takes an equally hard line on all other forms of crime with
stiff on the spot fines for trivial offences such as dropping litter and
chewing gum in the street, caning for males between 18 and 50 for a wide
variety of offences, and rigorous imprisonment for all serious crimes.
Arguments against the death penalty.
There
are a number of incontrovertible arguments against the death penalty.
The most
important one is the virtual certainty that genuinely innocent people will be
executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this
miscarriage of justice. There is also another significant but much less
realised danger here. The person convicted of the murder may have actually
killed the victim and may even admit having done so but does not agree that the
killing was murder. Often the only people who know what really happened are the
accused and the deceased. It then comes down to the skill of the prosecution
and defence lawyers as to whether there will be a conviction for murder or for
manslaughter. It is thus highly probable that people are convicted of murder
when they should really have only been convicted of manslaughter. Have a look
at the cases of James
McNicol and Edith
Thompson and see what you think.
A second
reason, that is often overlooked, is the hell the innocent family and friends of
criminals must also go through in the time leading up to and during the
execution and which will often cause them serious trauma for years afterwards.
It is often very difficult for people to come to terms with the fact that their
loved one could be guilty of a serious crime and no doubt even more difficult
to come to terms with their death in this form. However strongly you may
support capital punishment, two wrongs do not make one right. One cannot and
should not deny the suffering of the victim's family in a murder case but the
suffering of the murderer's family is surely valid too.
There
must always be the concern that the state can administer the death penalty
justly, most countries have a very poor record on this. In America, a prisoner can be on death row
for many years (on average 11 years {2004 figure}) awaiting the outcome of
numerous appeals and their chances of escaping execution are better if they are
wealthy and/or white rather than poor and/or black irrespective of the actual
crimes they have committed which may have been largely forgotten by the time
the final decision is taken. Although racism is claimed in the administration
of the death penalty in America, statistics show that white prisoners are more
liable to be sentenced to death on conviction for first degree murder and are
also less likely to have their sentences commuted than black defendants.
It must
be remembered that criminals are real people too who have life and with it the
capacity to feel pain, fear and the loss of their loved ones, and all the other
emotions that the rest of us are capable of feeling. It is easier to put this thought on one side
when discussing the most awful multiple murderers but less so when discussing,
say, an 18 year old girl convicted of drug trafficking. (Singapore hanged two girls for this crime in
1995 who were both only 18 at the time of their offences and China shot an 18
year old girl for the same offence in 1998.)
There is
no such thing as a humane method of putting a person to death irrespective of
what the state may claim (see later). Every form of execution causes the
prisoner suffering, some methods perhaps cause less than others, but be in no
doubt that being executed is a terrifying and gruesome ordeal for the criminal.
What is also often overlooked is the mental suffering that the criminal suffers
in the time leading up to the execution.
How would you feel knowing that you were going to die tomorrow morning
at 8.00 a.m.?
There may
be a brutalising effect upon society by carrying out executions - this was
apparent in this country during the 17th and 18th centuries when people turned
out to enjoy the spectacle of public hanging.
They still do today in those countries where executions are carried out
in public. It is hard to prove this one
way or the other - people stop and look at car crashes but it doesn't make them
go and have an accident to see what it is like.
It would seem that there is a natural voyeurism in most people.
The death
penalty is the bluntest of "blunt instruments," it removes the
individual's humanity and with it any chance of rehabilitation and their giving
something back to society. In the case
of the worst criminals, this may be acceptable but is more questionable in the
case of less awful crimes.
Will Britain restore capital punishment in the future?
My
2005 survey of 1118 respondents shows that 66.5% of the population (two out of
three people) would like capital punishment reinstated. Support for the death
penalty in Britain seems to be steady and it is strongly supported by young
people too. In the short term (say the next 10 years), there is no realistic
chance of reinstatement, however, despite majority public support for such a
move. Reintroduction of something that has been abolished is always much more difficult
than introducing something entirely new.
Successive free votes on the issue in the House of Commons during the 1980’s
failed to get anywhere near a majority for restoration. Politically it would be
impossible now, given our membership of the EU and our commitment to European
Convention on Human Rights, both of which are totally against capital
punishment. The EU contains no member states that practice it and will not
allow retentionist states to join. The present Labour government is implacably
opposed to capital punishment and has removed it from the statute book for the
few remaining offences for which it was still theoretically allowed. The
Conservative party seems to be split on the issue, but the official party line
is against reintroduction. The Liberal Democrats are firmly against.
There is no doubt that capital punishment is a very emotive issue but there is
a strong anti-death penalty lobby in this country who would put every obstacle
in the way of its return should it ever become likely.
There is concern at the number of convictions that are being declared unsafe by
the Courts, particularly for the most serious offences such as murder and
terrorism.
Yet we live in a time of ever rising serious crime despite what the government
tells us.
Will people become so fed up with escalating levels of crime and what they see
in, most cases, as derisory punishments that they will support anything that
appears likely to reduce crime and redress the balance? Or do they see the
return of capital punishment as a return to barbarity?
Should capital punishment be re-introduced in Britain?
There
are very real issues of human rights that will effect us all if it were to be
reintroduced.
Will the government introduce laws that are just and contain sufficient safeguards
and will the judiciary administer them properly?
We are
all potentially capable of murder (a lot of domestic murders, where one partner
murders the other during a row, are first time crimes) and, therefore, we must
each consider whether we and our loved ones are more at risk of being murdered
or being executed for committing murder.
We must
also consider what the likelihood is of innocent people being executed - it is
inevitable that it will happen sooner or later.
Can the
police, the courts, and the system generally be trusted to get things right on
every occasion? They never have been able to previously.
Will
juries be willing to convict in capital cases? Would you like to have to make
the decision as to whether the person in the dock should live or die?
Will the
government really be willing to carry out death sentences or will they find
every excuse for not doing so, thus returning to the injustices of earlier
centuries?
Will
executions really prove to be the deterrent that the supporters of capital
punishment expect them to be? This is a very important point as it is always
put forward by the pro-capital punishment lobby as the principal benefit from
reintroduction. It is unlikely the very worst murderers would be deterred
because they are typically psychopaths or of such dubious sanity that they are
incapable of rational behaviour (sometimes taking their own lives immediately
after the crime, as in the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres) Certain
criminals, e.g. drug traffickers, may be deterred because they have a clear
option with defined risks but would the person who has a violent argument with
their partner give a second thought to what will happen to them when in the
heat of the moment they pick up the carving knife?
It is
unlikely that a handful of executions a year will have any real deterrent
effect particularly on the people whom society would most like to be deterred,
e.g. serial killers, multiple rapists and drugs barons. Yet these particular
criminals are the least likely to be executed, the serial killers will be found
insane and the drug barons will use any means to avoid conviction, e.g.
intimidation of witnesses. So we go back to the situation where only
"sane" murderers can be executed. Thus a modern day Ruth Ellis might also hang because she was sane, whilst
Beverley Allitt, who murdered 4 small children, would be reprieved because she
has Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy or so she and certain psychiatrists claim.
Can
these scenarios ever be seen as justice?
Should
we only execute people for the most awful multiple murders as a form of
compulsory euthanasia rather than as a punishment or should we execute all
murderers irrespective of the degree of guilt purely as a retributive
punishment for taking another person's life and in the hope of deterring
others?
What about crimes such as violent rape, terrorism and drug trafficking - are
these as bad as murder? How should we punish such offences?
Should executions be carried out in such a way as to punish the criminal and
have maximum deterrent effect on the rest of us, (e.g. televised hangings).
Would this be a deterrent or merely become a morbid show for the voyeuristic?
Or should they be little more than a form of euthanasia carried out in such a
way as to remove from the criminal all physical and as much emotional suffering
as possible?
Does it make any sense to imprison someone for the rest of their life or is it
really more cruel than executing them, particularly if they are young?
If we do not keep them in prison for life, will they come out only to commit
other dreadful crimes? A small but significant number do.
What is the cost to society of keeping people in prison? (£700.00 per week at
present for an ordinary prisoner which is around £550,000 for a typical life
sentence for murder with a minimum tariff of 15 years).
These
questions need to be thought about carefully and a balanced opinion arrived at.
How do you feel about them? If you wish to share your thoughts with me send me
an email (Please include your
name and age)
If the
general conclusion is that capital punishment is desirable, then the first step
toward restoration is for the Government to present a fully thought out set of
proposals that can be put to the people in a referendum stating precisely what
offences should carry the death penalty, how it should be carried out, etc.,
and what effect on crime is expected to follow from reintroduction.
If such a
referendum produced a clear yes vote, the Government would have a genuine
mandate to proceed upon and could claim the support of the people, thus
substantially reducing the influence of the anti-capital punishment lobby.
There should be another referendum about 5 years later so that the effects of reintroduction
could be reviewed and voted on again. Referenda have the advantage of involving
the public in the decision making process and raising awareness through the
media of the issues for and against the proposed changes.
The alternatives.
What
are the realistic alternatives to the death penalty?
Any
punishment must be fair, just, adequate and most of all, enforceable. Society
still views murder as a particularly heinous crime which should be met with the
most severe punishment. Whole life imprisonment could fit the bill for the
worst murders with suitable gradations for less awful murders. Some 44 people are serving whole life tariffs
in the UK.
I am
personally against the mandatory life sentence for murder as it fails, in my
view, to distinguish between really dreadful crimes and those crimes which,
whilst still homicide, are much more understandable to the rest of us.
Therefore, it is clearly necessary to give juries the option of finding the
prisoner guilty but in a lower degree of murder, and to give judges the ability
to pass sensible, determinate sentences based upon the facts of the crime as
presented to the court.
Imprisonment,
whilst expensive and largely pointless, except as means of removing criminals
from society for a given period, is at least enforceable upon anyone who
commits murder (over the age of 10 years). However, it appears to many people
to be a soft option and this perception needs to be corrected.
In modern
times, we repeatedly see murderers being able to "get off" on the
grounds of diminished responsibility and their alleged psychiatric disorders or
by using devices such as plea bargaining. This tends to remove peoples' faith
in justice which is very dangerous.
Are there
any other real, socially acceptable, options for dealing with murderers? One
possible solution (that would enrage the civil liberties groups) would be to
have everyone's
"Life without parole" versus the death penalty.
Many
opponents of capital punishment put forward life in prison without parole as a
viable alternative to execution for the worst offenders, and surveys in America
have shown that life without parole (LWOP) enjoys considerable support amongst
those who would otherwise favour the death penalty.
However,
there are drawbacks to this:
It is
argued by some that LWOP is in fact a far more cruel punishment that
death. This proposition was put forward
in a UK parliamentary debate by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in the 19th
century. It is interesting to note that
no less than 311 prisoners serving life sentences in Italy petitioned their
government in 2007 for the right to be executed. They cited LWOP as a living death where they
died a little every day. In the USA, as
of January 2008, there are over 2,200 people serving whole life sentences who
were under 18 at the time they committed the crime, as US law no longer
permits the execution of minors. One
might be forgiven for asking what is the point of locking a person up to the
day they die and one might wonder if it is indeed a far worse punishment than
death.
Death
clearly permanently incapacitates the criminal and prevents them committing any
other offence. LWOP cannot prevent or
deter offenders from killing prison staff or other inmates or taking hostages
to further an escape bid - they have nothing further to lose by doing so and
there are instances of it happening in the USA.
However
good the security of a prison, someone will always try to escape and occasionally
will be successful. If you have endless time to plan an escape and everything
to gain from doing so, it is a very strong incentive.
We have
no guarantee that future governments will not release offenders, who were
imprisoned years previously, on the recommendations of various professional
"do-gooders" who are against any punishment in the first place.
Twenty or thirty years on it is very difficult to remember the awfulness of an
individual's crime and easy to claim that they have reformed.
Myra Hindley is a prime example of this phenomenon - whilst I am willing to
believe that she changed as a person during her 37 years in prison and probably
did not present any serious risk of re-offending, one has absolutely no
guarantee of this and it does not obviate her responsibility for her
crimes. Fortunately, she died of natural causes before she could obtain
the parole which I am sure she would have eventually been granted.
The Numbers Game "death versus deterrence".
If
we are, however, really serious in our desire to reduce crime through harsher
punishments alone, we must be prepared to execute every criminal who commits a
capital crime irrespective of their sex, age (above the legal minimum) alleged
mental state or background. Defences to capital charges must be limited by
statute to those which are reasonable. Appeals must be similarly limited and
there can be no reprieves. We must carry out executions without delay and with
sufficient publicity to get the message across to other similarly minded
people. This is similar to the situation which obtains in China and would, if
applied in Britain, undoubtedly lead to a large number of executions to begin
with until the message got through. I would estimate at least 2,000 or so in
the first year if it were applied for murder, aggravated rape and drug
trafficking. This amounts to more than 7 executions every day of the year
Monday through Friday.
Are we,
as a modern western society, willing to do this or would we shy away from it
and return to just carrying out the occasional execution to show that we still
can without any regard for natural justice? These events will be seized upon by
the media and turned into a morbid soap opera enjoyed by a (large?) proportion
of the population. (Note the popularity in the American media of capital murder
trials there.) It is doubtful whether executions carried out on this basis will
deter others from committing crimes.
For capital punishment to really reduce crime, everyone of us must realise that
we will personally and without doubt be put to death if we commit particular
crimes and that there can be absolutely no hope of reprieve.
One wonders if as many people would be willing to vote for this scenario in a
referendum when they realised the full consequences of their action.
I have no doubt that if we were to declare war on criminals in this fashion, we
would see a rapid decline in serious crime but at what cost in human terms?
There will be a lot of innocent victims - principally the families of those
executed.
"Mad or Bad".
Are
criminals (particularly murderers as we are discussing capital punishment) evil
or sick? This is another very important issue as it would seem hardly
reasonable to punish people who are genuinely mentally ill but more reasonable
to use effective punishment against those who are intentionally evil. As usual,
as a society, we have very confused views on this issue - there are those,
notably some social workers and psychiatrists, who seem to believe that there
is no such thing as evil whilst the majority of us do not accept that every
accused person should be let off, (i.e. excused any responsibility for their
actions) due to some alleged mental or emotional condition. Will advances in
mapping the human genome over the next couple of decades allow us to predict
those people who are prone to committing violent and murderous crimes and so
prevent them before they happen?
It would
seem that whilst legally and technically "sane" many criminals are in
some way abnormal and their thought processes are not like those of the rest of
us. Ruth Ellis was, in my view, a perfect case in point. She lived at a time
when the death penalty was mandatory for murder and was known to be in favour
of it herself. She had two small children and yet neither factor stopped her
committing a murder which she made no attempt to escape from or deny
responsibility for, and for which she knew that she would probably be hanged.
We can only conjecture why she did murder David Blakely, the man she loved at
all, and particularly in the way she did which was much more likely to result
in her execution. Home Office psychiatrists who examined her in the condemned
cell found her to be sane according to their definition, and I have no doubt
that we would also have considered her to be sane if we had interviewed her -
but she was obviously not "normal."
For a detailed account of her case and subsequent appeal Click here.
In
America the judicial system seems, on the whole, less concerned about the
mental state of condemned prisoners and are willing to execute them as the case
of the child killer, Westley Alan Dodd, who was clearly very abnormal indeed.
There are many other cases to choose from where the defendant's deeds are not
those of a normal person. The typical psychopath is often a person of above
average intelligence but is presently incurable and will continue to present a
severe risk to society.
Will we
ever find an answer to the "mad or bad" question and be able to find
effective treatment for those who turn out to be "mad?" Should we worry about the alleged mental
state of our worst criminals? These are the people who are least likely to
benefit from imprisonment or care in institutions (or worse still the
community) and are most likely to re-offend. It could, therefore, be argued
that killing these people would be a very good thing.
Capital punishment and the media.
Three hundred years ago there was no media.
Newspapers first started in England around 1725 and were expensive and of very
limited circulation. In any case few
people could read at that time. So
public executions were vital to show that justice had been done and provide a
deterrent to others. In particularly
heinous cases of murder the execution could be carried out near the scene of
the crime so that the local people could see the murderer punished, or the
criminal could be gibbeted near the scene to remind people of the
punishment. By 1800 newspapers were more
widespread and public execution was abolished in England, Scotland and Wales in
1868. Reporters were still allowed to
witness some executions for some years afterwards, but by the 20th century,
typically newspapers would merely state that so and so was executed yesterday for
the murder of … at such and such prison.
No details of the execution were made available and so the story would
be two paragraphs unless there was some special feature such as a protest
outside the prison. Radio and later
television news would also carry a similar brief report.
In the USA reporters are always permitted to attend
executions and they receive a lot of coverage at state level. However the media's
attitude to executions varies widely depending on the age and sex of the
criminal, the type of crime and method of execution.
Middle aged men being executed by lethal injection in say Texas for
"ordinary" murders hardly rate a paragraph in the press of other
states, nowadays and do not get a mention in the U.K. media at all. But, a woman convicted of double murder and
being injected on the same gurney gets tremendous worldwide media attention at
all levels (Karla Faye
Tucker). Equally, a man being hanged
in Washington or Delaware or shot by a Utah firing squad makes international
news (Westley Allan Dodd, Billy Bailey and John Taylor). And yet (non white) women being hanged in
Jordan and Singapore, the large number of people publicly beheaded in Saudi
Arabia and men and women executed by the hundred in China make very little
news. However, when a white woman is hanged in Africa, (Mariette Bosch in
Botswana) this is considered newsworthy by the British press. The UK
broadsheets ran large articles with photos of her.
Why is this? Is it a form of racism or do we not care if the execution takes
place in a Middle Eastern or Far Eastern Country? Are their criminals somehow
perceived as lesser people with less rights? The media obviously does not judge
many of these stories to be newsworthy although they are aware of them through
the news wires from those countries (which is how I know about them). In
Singapore when executions were reported, they typically only made a small
article and aroused very little public interest. Most Singaporeans, however,
firmly support the government hard line on crime and punishment.
During
the late 70's and early 80's when executions were rare in America, every
execution by whatever means, attracted a great deal of media interest and yet
now they are more frequent (normally averaging over one per week), the
authorities seem to have difficulty in finding sufficient official and media
witnesses. They also used to attract pro and anti-capital punishment protesters
in large numbers, but these seem to have dwindled down to just a few in most
cases.
I tend to think that if executions were televised, they would soon reach the
same level of dis-interest amongst the general public unless it fitted into a
"special category," i.e. a first by this or that method or a
particularly interesting criminal.
In Kuwait
criminals have been hanged in the yard of Nayef Palace and once the prisoners
are suspended the press and the public are allowed in to view the hanging
bodies. Photography is also allowed and
photographs of the executions appear in the Kuwaiti media. One wonders what the deterrent effect of
this. Have a look at the article on Kuwait to learn more.
Is media
coverage of executions just a morbid sideshow for some people, who deprived of
public hangings, etc., lap up every detail the media has to offer whilst the
majority ignore the not very interesting criminals who are executed by lethal
injection?
Lethal injection, as my own survey has shown, is perceived by most respondents
as the least cruel method - probably because it is the least gruesome method.
The less the public interest, the easier the process becomes - a state of
affairs that suits governments of many countries and states in America very
well.
Probably the majority of people don't much care either way and would rather
watch football! They may vaguely support capital punishment but do not wish to
be or feel involved.
The Future.
I
wonder if in another hundred years we will, as a world still have capital
punishment at all or for that matter prisons, or whether we will have evolved
technological means of detecting and correcting potential criminals before they
can actually commit any crime. It seems to me that we must first find this
technology and then educate public opinion away from its present obsession with
punishment by demonstrating that the new methods work, pointing out the
futility and waste of present penal methods, especially imprisonment and
execution.
Punishment
will remain popular with the general public (and therefore politicians) as long
as there are no viable alternatives and as long as crime continues its present
inexorable rise. Logically, however, punishment (of any sort) cannot be the
future - we must progress and therefore we will.
Until
this utopian point is reached, which I believe it ultimately will be, I think
that we will see the use of the death penalty continuing and its reintroduction
in countries that had previously abolished it.
Most of the Caribbean countries are trying to get it re-introduced.
It is
clear that in strict penal societies such as Singapore, that the crime rate is
much lower than in effectively non-penal societies such as Britain. It is,
therefore, logical to assume that Singaporean style policies are likely to be
adopted by more countries as their crime rates reach unacceptable proportions.
I do not
believe that the majority of people who support capital punishment or other
severe punishments, do so for sadistic reasons but rather out of a feeling of
desperation that they and their families are being overwhelmed by the rising
tide of crime which they perceive the government is doing too little to protect
them from. I think there would, in the long term, be sufficient support for non-penal
methods of dealing with criminals if these were proved to be effective.
A
particular danger in our society is that we continue to do little or nothing
effective about persistent juvenile offenders. If the death penalty were re
introduced, we may be consigning many of these to their death at the age of 18,
having never previously given them any discipline whatsoever. Surely execution
should not be both the first and last taste of discipline a person gets and yet
as we allow so many youngsters to run wild and commit ever more serious crimes
unpunished, public opinion and thus political expediency makes it more and more
likely. Nicholas
Ingram, who went to the electric chair in the American state of Georgia in
1995, is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
We should
start by introducing stricter discipline from "the bottom up," i.e.
start with unruly children at school and on the streets and progress through
young thugs and older thugs before we think about restoring capital punishment.
This way, we might bring up a generation or two of disciplined people who might
not need the threat of execution to deter them from committing the most serious
crimes.
It is
noticeable that whilst Singapore retains and uses the death penalty, it also
has severe punishments for all other offences, including caning for many
offences committed by young men who are usually the most crime prone group.
Thus, Singapore provides discipline at all levels in its society and has the
sort of crime figures that most countries can only dream of.
Pain and suffering – is the
death penalty a cruel and unusual punishment?
The
Eighth Amendment to the American Constitution prohibits the imposition of
"cruel and unusual punishments" and the "infliction of
unnecessary pain in the execution of the death sentence". Whilst this would seem reasonable it never
intended this amendment to guarantee a pain free death. When the Constitution was written execution
by hanging was specified and at the time this meant the short or no drop method
as the concept of a measured drop hadn't been invented. In the Supreme Court case of
Rees v Baze in 2007, Ralph Baze challenged the lethal injection procedure in
the state of Kentucky which was found to be constitutional by the court because
it did not intentionally cause pain.
Obviously one cannot be inside the brain of a person
as they are being out to death to know what, if any, pain they are
feeling. All we can do is to observe
their reaction to the process and carry out an autopsy afterwards. If for instance in a measured drop hanging,
there is no obvious struggling or movement after the drop and the autopsy finds
that the neck has been broken and the spinal cord severed then it is reasonable
to conclude that the person died a pain free death. In lethal injection if the person appears to
lapse into unconsciousness within seconds of the commencement of the injection
of the fast acting barbiturate that is normally the first chemical injected in
the US we conclude the same.
It is equally clear that when any form of execution is bungled the prisoner
often exhibits signs of great suffering.
The time taken in the actual preparations prior to the
execution, (e.g. insertion of the catheters or the shaving of the head and legs
for electrocution), must also cause great emotional suffering which again may
far outweigh the physical pain of the actual moment of death which at least has
an end. Remember that in 20th century Britain, it took typically around 15 seconds
to carry out a hanging, whereas it can take 20 to 45 minutes when all goes well
to carry out a lethal injection. It sometimes takes much longer when a vein
cannot be found. Hanging may cause a degree of physical pain, but surely being
executed over a period of half an hour or more must cause acute mental agony.
We have looked at the pain caused by execution but
what of the suffering?
One issue rarely addressed is the length of time prisoners spend in the
condemned cell or on death row in tiny cells in virtual solitary confinement
prior to execution and the uncertainty of eventual execution as various stays
are granted and then overturned (particularly in America, where it is an
average of over 12 years in 2006, the last year for which statistics are available
but can sometimes be over twenty years, as is the case in California).
In Britain when we had the death penalty, three clear Sundays had to elapse
between sentence and execution, although this period could increase somewhat if
the prisoner appealed. In the US the
person will have their execution date set often three months in advance and
have to deal with the approach of it. In
Japan they are informed within the last hour or so of their life so that they
never know when they will be taken to the gallows. In my view, the mental
anguish caused by this part of the process is a far greater cause of suffering
both to them and their families than that caused by the physical pain produced
by the eventual execution. This view was
shared by the British Privy Council which is still the final appeal body for
many of the Caribbean countries and who ruled that if executions had not been
carried out within five years after the death sentence then the person must be
reprieved.
Can capital punishment ever be "humane"?
I
have never personally believed that any form of death, let alone execution, is
either instant or painless, so which method of capital punishment should a
modern "civilised" society use?
Should our worst criminals be given a completely painless death even if the
technology exists to provide one, or should a degree of physical suffering be
part of the punishment?
Whatever method is selected should have some deterrent value whilst not causing
a deliberately slow or agonising death.
British
style, hanging is an extremely quick process that is designed to
cause instant and deep unconsciousness and also benefits from requiring simple
and thus quick preparation of the prisoner. It also seems to have substantial
deterrent value.
Lethal injection may appear to be more humane
than other methods to those who have to administer and witness it, but it is
also a very slow process. It is essential that the catheter actually goes into
a vein rather than through it or round it if the prisoner is to die a pain free
death. If it doesn’t, then the person may suffer a great deal of pain but will
be unable to communicate this due to the paralysing effects of the second drug.
The biggest single objection to lethal injection is the length of time required
to prepare the prisoner, which can take from 20 to 45 minutes depending on the
ease of finding a vein to inject into.
The gas chamber seems to
possess no obvious advantage as the equipment is expensive to buy and maintain,
the preparations are lengthy, adding to the prisoner's agonies, and it always
causes a slow and cruel death. It is also dangerous to the staff and witnesses.
Electrocution can cause a quick death when all goes well, but seems
to have a greater number of technical problems than any other method, often
with the most gruesome consequences. (This may in part be due to the age of the
equipment - in most case 70-90 years old!)
Shooting by a single bullet in the back of the head seems
greatly preferable to shooting by a firing squad in that it is likely to cause
instant unconsciousness followed quickly by death rather than causing the
prisoner to bleed to death, often whilst still conscious.
It is
easy to condemn capital punishment as barbaric, but is spending the rest of
one's life in prison so much less cruel to the prisoner or is it merely a way
of salving society's conscience and removing the unpleasantness for the staff
and officials?
For a full description of each of
these methods click on the hyperlinks above.
Conclusion.
At
the end of the debate, we would seem to be left with three options.
1) Not to
have the death penalty and the genuine problems it causes and continue to
accept the relatively high levels of murder and other serious crimes that we
presently have.
2)
Reintroduce capital punishment for just the "worst" murderers which
would at least be some retribution for the terrible crimes they have committed
and would permanently incapacitate them. It would also save a small amount of
money each year which could, perhaps, be spent on the more genuinely needy.
This option is unlikely to reduce overall crime levels.
3)
Reintroduce the death penalty in the really strict format outlined above and
see a corresponding drop in serious crime whilst accepting that there will be a
lot of human misery caused to the innocent families of criminals and that there
will be the occasional, if inevitable, mistakes.
Ultimately the choice
is yours!
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