Discuss the Arguments For and Against the Reintroduction of the Death Penalty For Murder
Discuss the arguments for and against the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder
The death penalty, the ultimate punishment for man some may say. There are equally valid arguments for both views. This essay will discuss the arguments for and against the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder.
Capital punishment is punishment by death - hanging, electrocution, gas chamber, firing squad, lethal injection or beheading. It is normally reserved for murder although can be used in certain other exceptional circumstances (E. McLaughlin and J. Munice, 2001).
"Hanging was used in England and Wales between 1016 and 1964" (E. McLaughlin and J. Munice, 2001: 24). The purpose of which seems to have been retributive as well as deterrent. After May 1868, executions took place inside the prisons as previously, when they were public affairs, spectators often used the occasion as an opportunity to commit further crime thus turning what was supposed to show the power of law into a crime spree itself (E. McLaughlin and J. Munice, 2001).
"The death penalty was abolished in this country in 1965" (Davies, Croall and Tyrer, 1995: 6) although this was only for a five year trial period and was abolished officially in December 1969 (E. McLaughlin and J. Munice, 2001). It is still retained in some states in the USA and in certain African and Asian countries.
In many places where the death penalty is still used as a means of punishment, more people are actually sentenced to death than are killed. For example, in the USA during 1995, 3,000 people were under death sentences but only 56 were executed. Statistics like these often bring about critical questions like, whether there is any point in retaining the death penalty and whether or not it does actually have an effect on society or on crime.
Some states may justify the use of capital punishment simply on retributive grounds although the most common political belief is that it has a general deterrent capacity to save further innocent lives and significantly reduce other capital offences (R. Hood, 1989).
With regards to retribution, those who commit crime deserve to be punished, execution is a very real punishment with the criminal being made to suffer in proportion to the offence committed (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html).
"It is necessary to distinguish two different, although often related, conceptions of general deterrence" (R. Hood, 1989: 119). The death penalty implies that ...
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Some states may justify the use of capital punishment simply on retributive grounds although the most common political belief is that it has a general deterrent capacity to save further innocent lives and significantly reduce other capital offences (R. Hood, 1989).
With regards to retribution, those who commit crime deserve to be punished, execution is a very real punishment with the criminal being made to suffer in proportion to the offence committed (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html).
"It is necessary to distinguish two different, although often related, conceptions of general deterrence" (R. Hood, 1989: 119). The death penalty implies that the threat of capital sanction, or to be more precise the risk of death, prevents those who are about to commit a capital offence from doing so, in more cases than would the threat of life imprisonment. Therefore there would be an obvious relationship between the risk of execution and the rate of capital offences (R. Hood, 1989).
The second conception implies that the existence of capital punishment emphasises the severity of a crime therefore reinforcing criminal inhibitions against committing it (R. Hood, 1989). The death penalty is only a deterrent if execution is an absolute certainty and "homicide is usually a crime committed in undeterrable states of mind anyway" (N. Walker, 1991: 16).
Capital punishment incapacitates criminals, obviously removing them from society permanently, thus eliminating the chance of them re-offending even though murder has the lowest reconviction rates.
One of the main arguments of those who oppose the use of capital punishment is the chance that an innocent person may be incorrectly convicted and sentenced to death. "Two of the leading opponents of capital punishment in the United States today, Professors Hugo Adam Bedau and Michael L. Radelet, concluded in a 1987 study that 23 innocent people have been put to death in the United States since 1900" (M. Grossman, 1998: 129). In today's society, courts commit resources to avoid such miscarriages of justice to ensure that innocent people are not put to death, although even as late as 1962, James Hanratty, subsequently considered innocent, was put to death for a crime committed on an English road although another man later confessed to the offence, and in 1997 a British commission concluded that Hanratty may well have been innocent (M. Grossman, 1998).
Capital punishment has always faced a lot of controversy. One of the reasons is due to the cost of actually carrying out the death penalty. Those in favour of capital punishment persistently argue that, "cost cannot be considered as part of the judicial equation when justice is being sought" (M. Grossman, 1998: 60). Those against the death penalty utilise numbers to prove their argument that it actually costs the state more to execute someone that it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life. Margot Garey states that "because of constitutional requirements and the diligence of attorneys in capital cases, death penalty litigation is a long, expensive process" where, after conviction, appeals which usually last decades follow as courts examine the case and investigate possible legal errors that could overturn the death sentence (M. Grossman, 1998).
Another main controversial topic when discussing capital punishment is human rights and the right to life. Does a particular murderer, taking into account the full circumstances of his or her life, really deserve to die at the hands of the state? (A. Sarat, 2001). Criminals, although they may have committed the most awful murders, are still real people who have a life, and with it comes the capability of feeling pain, love, fear and all the other emotions the rest of society feel (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html).
"There is no such thing as a humane method of putting a person to death, irrespective of what the state may claim" (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html). Every form of execution causes suffering and being executed is a terrifying and gruesome ordeal for any criminal (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html). A Canadian writer, Bernard Lande Cohen wrote "The state has a duty to protect itself and its citizens not only from foreign enemies but from the domestic variety as well" but he also insists "the right of a government to take the life of any of its subjects ought to be subject to the strictest review in all instances and no matter how deserving of death and how little deserving of pity, it would be entirely wrong to inflict pain or torture upon him, or any form of death that is of a painful nature" (M. Grossman, 1998: 6).
An often, overlooked reason for opposing the death penalty is the depth of feelings of the friends and family of the criminal. They suffer pain and trauma leading up to and during the execution and will no doubt suffer serious trauma for years afterwards. Although, some may argue that the criminal's family and friends' feelings are now the same as the victims and, in that way, just (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html).
The discriminatory nature of the death penalty was recognised in the United States by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972. The evidence shows racial bias continuing to influence the jury. A report released in 1990 by the General Accounting office in the states shows indications of racial discrimination. The study concluded that, "a person accused of killing a white was 4.3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a person accused of killing a black" (www.igc.org/africanam/archives/eh2/factsheet.html).
There does not seem to be any other alternative to the death penalty except life imprisonment without parole. Punishment must be fair and in proportion to the offence committed and for the worst murderers life - meaning life - is an option. It protects the public from the risk of re-offence and allows time for rehabilitation. Most criminals are only, if at all, deterred by the thought of being caught and even the "best review of the evidence from research concludes that 'it has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment'" (N. Walker, 1991: 16).
In conclusion we see that the arguments for and against capital punishment are both very strong and depending on one's situation, circumstances and beliefs the ultimate decision to support or oppose the death penalty is that of the individual. The likelihood of Britain ever reintroducing the death penalty for murder is minimal. Politically it would be extremely hard given British commitment to human rights and our membership of the EC, which itself is highly opposed to capital punishment and contains no member states that still retain the death penalty as its highest form of punishment (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/thoughts.html).
