Many may question why a Correctional Officer is against capital punishment. Here's why I am.
Capital Punishment – Why NOT
Many people take the death penalty for granted. We have always had the death penalty in this country and we have all grown up hearing things like, “He killed someone. He deserves to die” or, “He got what he deserved.” But can we really justify execution as a form of punishment?
Proponents of the death penalty present six arguments for the application of capital punishment. They are that it (1) reduces recidivism against society, (2) provides a powerful deterrent violent crime, (3) is less expensive than a sentence of Life Without Possibility of Parole (LWOPP), (4) provides for societal retribution against the offender, (5) provides for a proportional societal response to the crime committed, and (6) provides an appropriate eugenic excuse. I believe that none of these arguments can sufficiently justify the use of the death penalty.
Let’s look at each in turn. First, does the death penalty reduce the recidivism rate against society for a given offender? Certainly the executed person will never recidivate against society, but might not LWOPP also reduce this rate to zero? Of course it would. Therefore, prevention of possible future crimes against society is not a justification for the capital punishment.
It could be argued that prisoners often commit crimes against each other while in prison and that LWOPP allows a convict to recidivate against his fellow prisoners, but I argue that society should not be responsible for the violent nature of incarcerated people. The purpose of society imprisoning them is to protect society, not to protect them from each other. The dangers inherent in prison life are part of the punishment of being incarcerated. Though, of course, reasonable precautions should be taken and procedures implemented to protect prisoners from each other, if the fact that prisons are dangerous places were to be allowed an argument against incarcerating criminals, no one would ever go to prison.
Another argument against capital punishment to prevent recidivism is that society is then preemptively punishing someone for crimes they have not yet committed. Society would be stating that it believes the offender WILL commit additional crimes and that he is irredeemable. Therefore, capital punishment is the only option to ensure that those future crimes will never be committed.
Notice, I said, “will commit”, not, “might commit”. The finality of the punishment is such that society had better be sure the offender will recidivate, not just believe it “likely” or “possible”, if it is going to use recidivism as a justification. I can see an argument for using recidivism as a justification for punishments less severe than the death penalty, because the offender can be observed as he serves his sentence and if it should be determined at a later time that the convict no longer posses a danger of recidivism sufficient to require his continued incarceration, he can be released. Not so with the death penalty. It is final, permanent, and irrevocable.
The second major argument for the death penalty is that it provides a powerful deterrent to crimes for which the death penalty is imposed. The concept of deterrence states that a hypothetical “rational criminal” will pause before he commits his criminal act to consider the potential consequences of his actions and those potential consequences, being severe in nature, will make him reconsider his plans and refrain from committing the criminal act in the first place.
First, many who commit crimes that warrant the death penalty are not rational at the time of the commission of the crime sufficient to carefully consider the consequences of their actions. These crimes are commonly known as “crimes of passion” where the offender becomes so emotionally agitated that, though still in control of their ability to distinguish right and wrong, they choose to disregard the dictates of their conscience and act in an irrational manner, allowing heir emotions rather than their reason to dictate their actions. These people do not consider the possible consequence3s of their actions in favor of satisfying their emotional needs. Since deterrence depends fundamentally on a rational consideration of consequences, these, by definition irrational people, are not affected by deterrence.
Second, in order for deterrence to work, it must be swift, sure, and severe enough that if it is considered rationally, it will compel the potential offender to reconsider his planned actions and make a different choice. However, our justice system is anything but swift. This slowness starts the moment the crime is committed, because there is not an instantaneous response to the criminal act. It can take anywhere from several minutes to years before the police show up to arrest an offender after he has committed the crime. Then, once arrested, there are many inherent delays in the system put there to ensure that the innocent are not punished along with the guilty. Finally, once conviction occurs, on average, it takes 13 ½ years to actually carry out the execution. Clearly, the swiftness requirement is not met.
Neither is capital punishment sure. Because the system is set up to protect the innocent, even at the cost of letting some guilty offenders to free, there are many who are not convicted, or punished, or whose sentences are reduced to something less than capital punishment. Even those who are duly convicted and sentenced to be executed have hope, because the appeals process often allows them to reduce their sentence to something less than execution.
I know an inmate in prison now who was on death row for multiple murders and who has told me that he is quite willing to kill again if he feels someone wrongs him. He is now a minimum-custody inmate with unsupervised access to the outside of the institution where he is incarcerated. Stories like this one give potential criminals good reason to hope that even if they were to be caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to death, the sentence would not be carried out. Therefore, the death penalty does not happen with sufficient surety to create the fear of it that is required to deter.
The final condition to be met for deterrence to work, severity, is also not met. Our methods of dealing out death are specifically engineered to not be “cruel and unusual” and therefore engender no fear. The three main methods of execution, electrocution, lethal injection, and inhalation of poison gas, all cause nearly instantaneous death. In the case of lethal injection, the victim is put to sleep before the toxin is introduced, so there is no discomfort at all. Even the other methods, death by firing squad or by hanging, are not deemed unduly painful.
Though the thought of their personal death is distressing to any sane person, people are unfamiliar with the concept of death as punishment in their daily lives. We don’t do public executions in the town square anymore, or in the equivalent modern venue, television. People rarely see death take place any longer except in the easily dismissed fantasy world of the movies or television fiction. We see the after-affects of death, the funeral, the burial, graves, and we certainly have to deal with the lingering effects, the loss, the paperwork, the expense, but rarely does anyone outside the medical profession ever see someone actually expire. The actual process of death, the last spoken words, the fear of imminent death, the physical pain experienced by the dying and related first hand to those left behind are all alien to most people. Therefore, because no one is familiar with death on a personal level, no one is really deterred by the personal fear of death.
Another reason I believe that deterrence is a flawed concept is that in many instances, the offender believes himself justified in his actions. One famous example of this concept is the story told in the movie, “A Time to Kill” where the father of a raped girl killed the rapist. The father was tried and the jury refused to convict despite clear evidence of guilt. Another common example is the situation where a man comes home unexpectedly to find his wife in bed with her lover and then kills one or both of them. The justification I have often heard for this is, “Well, he/she/they deserved it.”
Thinking like this indicates that the offender does not believe he has done anything wrong, so he does not expect any societal retribution at all. There is not deterrent value for any punishment that the offender does not expect to be imposed.
The final reason that deterrence is an illusion is that its validity depends on the offender believing that is capture is assured. Except in the possible case of an insane offender who intentionally commits a criminal act for the express purpose of getting caught, “rational” criminals believe they will be able to elude capture indefinitely, so whatever the consequence, it will not affect their decision-making process.
The third major argument put forth for the death penalty is that it is less expensive to the state, and therefore the tax-payer to execute a prisoner than to lock him up for LWOPP. This is actually not true. Death row inmates spend between 10-15 years on death row (depending on individual state laws these averages vary). During this time they use up resources that inmates with LWOPP do not, like additional Correctional Officers, a beefier physical plant, defense counsel, prosecutorial counsel, court costs, the cost of the execution process itself, etc. Taken together, these costs add up to considerably more than the average cost of keeping an offender locked up for the rest of his life. (You can find statistics supporting this all over the web. Many states publish statistics on their state’s death penalty/LWOPP programs. Please see:
http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost for an example of California’s costs.)
The Fourth argument is that the death penalty is justified as societal retribution. Our society says that it will not permit individuals to take their revenge, but that it is permissible for large groups to take revenge in the victim’s name. Presumably this is based on the idea that the group, being detached and more numerous, will be able to make a judgment that is more equitable and avoids the pitfalls of allowing any one individual, with all his flaws and prejudices, to make the decision. In other words, the majority is always right, so we’ll let the group decide for us individuals. (It also has the advantage of spreading out the liability for killing another human being from one person to many, thereby assuaging any personal guilt.) The problem is that groups do not always make ethically justifiable decisions.
Take for instance the Nazis’ campaign to promote the “Master Race” through genocide and how the German people went along. Or, to choose an example closer to home, how about the institution of slavery in this country? This was a practice that was, at best, degrading and, at worst, murderous, on a vast scale. Large numbers of people, a whole society, believed there was nothing wrong with slavery, that in fact, that it was the natural order of things for whites to enslave, abuse, and even murder, blacks. The atrocities do not stop there. There have been wars and invasions of countries for religious reasons. Entire cultures have been wiped out in the New World due to greed and disease. People have been killing each other in the Middle East for centuries, simply because the target didn’t believe as the assailant believed he should. The list goes on and on. Clearly, people cannot be trusted to make the right choice, however you define right and wrong, simply because they are numerous. It is a philosophical truism that might does not make right, whether you are talking about strength of arms or strength in numbers. Society has proven itself a poor judge of when it is or is not appropriate to take the life of a human being, so allowing “society” to determine when retribution is justified seems unwise at best. More likely, it is in itself a criminally negligent act.
The fifth argument is that it provides a proportional response to the offender’s actions. The problem with, “eye-for-an-eye” is that eventually, you run out of eyes. How do you kill someone more than once? How can executing someone like Timothy McVey who killed and injured hundreds, only once, make up for all those deaths he caused? His crime was totally out of proportion to the punishment dealt out to him. Further, in his case, he requested the death penalty. How can giving someone what he requests be considered punishment? (I know, we have to have standards to which everyone is held and we cannot fall into the trap of simply deciding to deal out the opposite punishment from what the criminal requests, but clearly, McVey was spared many years of guilt by his swift execution.)
Additionally, the severity of the crime is always taken into account in capital cases when determining the sentence. This is so that, as much as is possible, sentences are dolled out equitably and fairly. But we must ask ourselves if it is a fair and proportional response to meet out a swift, painless, single, humane death in response to many different severities of capital crimes. Is it fair to treat a McVey the same as someone who commits a single murder in a non-heinous manner?
Finally, there is a “societal eugenics” argument that could be put forth to support the death penalty. Essentially, the death penalty would be used to remove the least desirable elements of society so as to produce a stronger, better society. I mention this only for the sake of completeness as I do not think there are any in this country who would seriously advocate this reason, or if there are, society would not seriously consider this argument. However, as the argument as been used in the past to justify lethal governmental action against its citizens, I think there is a need to refute it.
Quite simply, though there is evidence that predispositions to act in certain ways are passed from generation to generation, heredity in no way pre-determines a person’s actions to the point they are incapable of deciding not to commit an illegal act. No one is compelled to act a certain way by their genes, therefore removing people from the gene pool will not eliminate crime or improve quality of life for future members of society.
So, the death penalty, though it certainly stops all recidivism for the executed person, it is no better at it than LWOPP. It is more expensive than LWOPP, provides no deterrent effect, cannot be justified as a proportional societal response or as societal retribution, and can’t be applied eugenically. I can find no justification for capital punishment over LWOPP.
There is one additional reason not to employ the death penalty. What if the person is innocent? Clearly executing the innocent goes against everything our justice system and societal norms require. The question is, are we willing to allow a few innocent to be executed to be sure we get those that are guilty and if so, how many? I personally think that if even one person is executed erroneously, it is one person too many. Even God, who knows everyone’s heart perfectly, refused to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if even one righteous person could be found within. Surely, that same standard should apply to us mere mortals and since we do not possess god-like wisdom and knowledge, surely we should err on the side of caution and abolish the death penalty.
I would like to leave you with a bit of wisdom from the pen of J. R. R. Tolkien:
“What a pity Bilbo did not stab the vile creature, when he had a chance!”
“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.”
“I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.”
“Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”
Frodo remembering his conversation with Gandalf in
The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, pg. 221
