Capital Punishment: For and Against

In many countries of the world the question of capital punishment is a highly controversial one. Capital punishment, of course, means the passing of the death sentence as a penalty for very s6rious crimes, such as treason or certain kinds of murder. Capital is derived from the Latin word for 'head' and in this context means 'paying for a crime with one's head' - that is, with one's life. A number of countries, mainly European, have now abolished capital punishment. The latest to do so was Great Britain, where the Abolition Law was finally passed in January, 1970, after a trial five-year period during which the death sentence was not applied. The main purpose of the experiment was to see whether murder statistics were noticeably affected by the suspension of capital punishment. The situation in the United States is less clear-cut, since each of the fifty states has its own system of laws and its own criminal code. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the death sentence has been passed in a number of cases in different states during the last decade and that so far capital punishment has not been abolished in any of them, all such sentences have been suspended - that is, they have not been carried out. In many other parts of the world, however, especially in Africa, Asia, and South America, the death sentence for serious crimes is regarded as perfectly normal and excites little public attention or criticism.

First of all, what are the arguments for and against the use of capital punishment? The whole subject is one which arouses feelings of the greatest intensity in certain people. Those in favour of capital punishment are fond of quoting the Jewish law of the Old Testament: "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". A person who has deliberately taken another person's life must pay with his own. They also believe that the existence of the death penalty deters would-be criminals from committing murder, and argue that it also strengthens the hand of the State in its war against crime. There are other reasons, too, why the death penalty is popular with governments, though these reasons, are not usually declared openly. Capital punishment is much cheaper than maintaining criminals in prison for many years. It is also final: there is no risk that a dangerous criminal will revert to crime as he might do after his release from prison. And of course it is the safest way of removing dangerous political opponents from the scene - much safer than imprisonment or exile.

Those in favour of the abolition of capital punishment also possess a number of powerful arguments. They, too, oppose the death penalty on moral grounds, claiming that it is nothing less than a form of murder sanctioned by the State. They point to a number of cases in which accused persons were wrongfully sentenced and executed because further evidence of the crime was revealed only after their death. Even the roost fair-minded judge and jury, they claim, are capable of making such irreparable mistakes. An imprisoned man can always be set free but it is impossible to rectify a major injustice if the accused person has already been executed. Such grave miscarriages of justice should not even be risked.  

The abolitionists also challenge the idea that the death sentence does have a deterrent effect on would-be murderers. 'They draw attention to the considerable number of murderers who commit suicide immediately after committing their crime. In such cases the existence of the death penalty can hardly be considered an effective deterrent. Those committing 'passionate crimes', such as the killing of an unfaithful wife or husband or some other close relative, are also considered to be too emotional at the time of the act to consider the consequences realistically. Statistics indicate that the mature, experienced criminal does not readily commit murder. Rather it is the young and inexperienced criminal, who, in a moment of panic or because of his faith in his own toughness or cleverness, will tend to reach for a gun. Such young killers are usually of low intelligence, impulsive and optimistic by nature, with little or no sense of social responsibility. They readily assume that they are bound to 'get away with it.' They believe that either they will not be caught or even if they are caught that they will not be executed. In many countries they have good reason for thinking so: in Britain, for example, during the first fifty years of this century nearly half of those condemned to death were reprieved before the death sentence was carried out.

About one category of crime both pro- and anti-abolition parties are in agreement: that murderers who are proved to be insane at the time when the crime was committed should not be executed, though of course they should be confined in special institutions so as not to endanger society further with their assaults. While this attitude is reasonable in itself a mad man by definition cannot be considered for his actions - it leads to great complications in the courts, since madness is very difficult to define, and to establish in the accused. One category of murder has also received special attention and is judged more severely than others, namely the killing of law-enforcement officers such as policemen and prison warders. Such people run a much greater risk of death than the ordinary citizen because their duties bring them in close contact with the world of criminals, and many people who are otherwise against capital punishment feel that they deserve the maximum protection that the law can provide.

The numbers of those who feel strongly about the question of capital punishment (either for or against) are in fact quite small, although they are very active in publicizing their views and in attempting to win converts. The great majority of the public, in most cases, has no strong convictions but respond to what they feel to be the evidence. The evidence of the British five-year experiment, during which time no executions took place, indicates that while crime as a whole, and violent crime in particular, noticeably increased, the number of murders that would formerly have merited the death penalty remained very much the same as in the previous period.

Lately, however there has been a marked extension of warlike violence, often involving death, into the sphere of civil life – the planting of bombs by radical political groups, the hijacking of aircrafts, the kidnapping and killing of diplomats who are used as political hostages. Such activities are not likely to encourage liberal or humanitarian attitudes in the average citizen. It is significant that 'Law and Order' has become a slogan at elections on both sides of the Atlantic in recent months. The Liberal abolitionists, after having made great headway during the past decades, are now beginning to meet determined opposition to their cause from the normally uncommitted man in the street.