Governments around the world claim to be ‘tough on crime.’ The ultimate punishment that the state can dispense in response to violent crimes such as rape and murder is the death sentence. Periodically, particularly heinous crimes around the world lead to demands for either the reinstatement of capital punishment or a pronouncement of the death penalty where still available. It is not surprising that President Donald Trump made a plea, in August 2019, for legislation enabling the death penalty for hate crimes and mass murders in response to events in Dayton and El Paso.
Execution has been around since at least the 18th century BC, during the reign of King Hammurabi of Babylon, and has featured in many succeeding civilisations. In medieval times, many methods of execution came to be developed, such as beheading, boiling in oil, burning at the stake, drawing and quartering, and hanging. The long drop was introduced at a later date to make hanging a more “humane” procedure. A range of crimes, many of them relatively minor by today’s standards, came to be punished by judicial execution well into the early Victorian era. Public executions continued to provide macabre and voyeuristic entertainment to large crowds of people in the UK until May 1868.
Newer methods of execution followed advances in scientific knowledge and developments in technology. Firing squads were used for both military and civilian executions following the introduction of firearms, thereby replacing cruder methods such as the use of bows and crossbows. Electrocution in the electric chair was first used in 1890, followed by the gas chamber in 1924, and lethal injection in 1982.
As of 2019, fifty-six countries around the world still retain capital punishment. This form of punishment is particularly prevalent in the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. In Europe, only Belarus has retained the death sentence. In the UK, the last hanging took place in 1964, and the death sentence for treason and piracy with violence was finally officially abolished in 1998. Major current users of the death penalty include countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and the US, where 29 states retain the death penalty on the statute books. It is worth noting that the US did actually suspend capital punishment between 1972 and 1976, when the Supreme Court overturned the earlier proscription.
The death penalty has been widely condemned as a violation of human rights. Despite this, many people continue to support the execution of criminals as a deserved punishment, as a deterrent against violent crime and as a way to provide restitution and closure for victim’s families. It is also considered cheaper in the longer term than paying for the costs of incarceration for life without parole. In general, those who commit capital crimes are not felt to be worthy of rehabilitation.
Opponents of capital punishment point to the number of innocent people who have been wrongly executed-as demonstrated by DNA fingerprinting technology, and to the fact that some capital crimes have been committed by people with mental health illnesses that require treatment rather than punishment. These miscarriages of justice have hardened opinions against the death sentence. The ethics of using the desire for revenge to justify the death penalty are also a matter for discussion.
Unfortunately, many executions are nothing more than extra-judicial or pseudo-judicial killings. Genocidal regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union provided morally reprehensible excuses for many others to follow in their steps. The practice of killing political prisoners and those alleged of “treason” is an example of the state-sanctioned and yet illegal elimination of opponents. Some Islamic states treat blasphemy, apostasy, adultery and homosexuality as capital crimes, in addition to certain drug trafficking offences.
It is clear that the death penalty has many advocates around the world who are willing to provide many different justifications for this form of punishment. Extra-judicial execution, however, has no place in a modern and civilised society. It is encouraging that attitudes against capital punishment continue to harden, partly as a response to reports of botched attempts at execution.
Worldwide objections to the Sultan of Brunei’s version of sharia legal code, which includes death by stoning for adultery and gay sex, demonstrate a widespread rejection of religious executions. But attitudes will not change overnight, and what individual nations chose to do with mass murderers and terrorist executioners has yet to be decided. The question here is whether there is a moral gradient of crime.What punishment would be suitable for modern-day equivalents of Nazi concentration camp guards? Either way, it seems likely that judicial capital punishment will cease to be part of increasing numbers of criminal justice systems throughout the world.
Ashis Banerjee (I recently saw this anti-execution slogan: An Eye for an Eye means the World Becomes Blind)