Capital Punishment

Should Capital Punishment be abolished?

Capital punishment, also known as death penalty or execution, is the judicial mechanism which is legally institutionalized with the intent of depriving an individual the right to live as a method of the highest possible authorized punishment. However, Canada and 16 American states have already abolished death penalty, while Californians were given a chance to vote on April 2012, Election day if whether lifetime imprisonment without parole was an appropriate replacement for it. According to May 2006 Gallup Poll, public opinion expressed more support towards lifetime sentence without parole at 48% compared to death penalty at 47%. If capital punishment was initially established to serve the civil society, what is the reason behind recent trend towards its abolishment? The answer lies in the simple fact that capital punishment is inherently flawed in terms of flexibility and it is both financially and economically taxing.

The death sentence is an unjust legal procedure, both irreversible once ruled and incapable of accounting for considerations when handed down to a possibly undeserving or underprivileged criminal. The system does make provision for all the unique circumstances and different factors that have driven the crime before handing down the ultimatum of execution onto the offenders. Oftentimes, a blind eye is turned towards criminals on death row over crimes that should not have warranted a death penalty for law is held as the absolute. In the documentary of “The Condemned: Bali Nine”, we were shown how nine young Australians arrested on the charges of drug smuggling turned over a new leaf and lead productive lives despite being confined to a prison. From their efforts in seeking education, hosting language classes and art galleries, we are able to sense their sincerity in repenting for a naïve mistake and also see that they are trying to earn a well-deserved second chance in life. Regardless, the law does not make provision for a second opportunity they all deserve, which in turn is a direct transgression of human rights. Prejudice also plays a role in deciding between life and death of a convict in court, according to Santa Clara Law Review (2005) that revealed offenders to be over 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death if they killed whites instead of blacks or Latinos. The worse that can happen is when an executed offender that is found innocent after his sentence is carried out. Since death is not reversible, the deaths of the wrongly accused remains as a permanent scar on the records of the legislation and serves as an awful reminder to the society that even deadly mistakes can be made in court. It is reported that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights (1993) proved the innocence of over 130 people on death row with evidence. Hence, we can infer that the court passes judgment more recklessly than people would like to believe. The basis of capital punishment has thus became a gamble of one’s life, with the cards being the flawed system, lack of competency in the assigned attorney, any form of prejudice against the accused, a meticulous investigation or the lack of thereof, and collection and the timing of the evidence.

From the utilitarian standpoint, capital punishment is a major financial burden with its hefty costs incurred during the administration and proceedings in the court. As taken from Los Angeles Times (2005), "the California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state's execution." Despite the age-old argument of life not having a price tag, a monetary value can be indeed assigned to individual life in the modern capitalistic society. The absolute and irrefutable evidence supporting this fact is the very existence of the multi-billion dollar industry thriving even during recession providing a service that is so vague in its terms: the life insurance. Nonetheless, this is a debate for another day. Capital punishment is in many aspects similar to a suicide if you exclude the cause of death. In sociological point of view, a suicide is a form of avoidance of responsibilities towards the society, as all humans are responsible in some way to their peers and people around them, not to mention his country. Suicide from Death Row as written by Lester and Tartaro (2002) revealed that the suicide rates among inmates with an impending capital punishment is 113 per 100,000 from the year 1976 to 1999, ten times more than  the rate of suicides in the whole prison population within United States. By choosing to take one's own life, freedom from all burdens is achieved with complete disregard towards the consequences or the effects it may bring. Death Penalty Info (2011) also provided the information of having 137 prisoners waiving their appeals and asking for an execution instead. In a financial perspective, suicide could be regarded as a loss of productivity and potential financial loss, as people are capable of generating wealth during their lifetime. If these two aspects are fused together to examine capital punishment on a slightly different angle, death sentence is lost labour and avoidance of social responsibility for the committed crime. Combined together, there is hardly anything more ineffective and inefficient, not to mention uneconomical, as the capital punishment.

In brief, capital punishment has so many downsides. It is archaic, old, and not thoroughly devised. It does not make room for a second opportunity for the fairness of justice, nor incorporates a procedural mechanism to correct and amend itself. As the research data shows, it is clearly ineffective for its purpose of crime prevention and reduction, not to mention it is uneconomical as the process is lengthy and requires very specific, qualified personnel to be involved. Above all, it is also a transgression of human rights. Based on all the points and findings, it is evident that we have learned enough from capital punishment so far to deem this practice outdated and impractical. If aforementioned factors are taken into consideration, isn't it already due time for this system to be put out of place? With capital punishment abolished, we can only expect for the corrective systems to improve in its efficiency, crime rates decreasing, less financial pressure to the poorly funded courts and resulting in the savings being invested for a better cause within the society.


References


To be added soon.