The Tribune

By Malcolm Strachan

THE continuing nonsense talk about the death sentence continues – despite there being little likelihood of it ever being carried out, and not a stitch of evidence being presented to suggest that it will serve as a deterrent to further crime.

This seems to happen every time there is a major crime spike. A bunch of people come out and say well we need to execute these people – by whatever particular means they deem appropriate. Again, the method of execution is seldom presented with any evidence for its effectiveness.

The latest person to pipe up in favour of the death penalty is former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, who says he favours hanging for people. This preference is despite a debate over whether hanging constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment, and with the number of things that can go wrong during a hanging from the hanged person surviving with chronic injuries to accidental decapitation.

Before we even get to what the method should be, though, we should consider what is the purpose of capital punishment at all.

The much-repeated reason for reintroducing capital punishment is to deter crime. Even Dr Minnis last week in his call for capital punishment said that if people felt they might be hanged then it might stop them from committing a crime. He did not provide evidence for this.

The truth is we do have a death penalty – but it is the criminals who are carrying it out.

Time and again, we hear of victims of murders being known to police, or being out on bail. One recent victim was about to have their court case start this coming week.

Execution is already taking place on our streets, and without the niceties of a judge and a jury as part of the process.

Criminals already know they risk death – and a lot faster than any legal process would take to decide if they are worthy of a length of rope.

Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander not so long ago praised a man for seeking to be put back into prison and giving up his bail in order to remain alive. The risk of death is real for criminals and suspects in crimes – the distant threat of a rope is not likely to serve as much of an extra deterrent compared to the likelihood of being shot dead on the street.

And how many cases would we truthfully be talking about? One? Two? To be a real deterrent, criminals would have to think not just that it was possible that a death penalty would be applied to them but that it would be likely. So how many executions are we talking about? Twenty? Thirty? Given the size of our nation, that would put us as a massive outlier in terms of proportions of death sentences to population – what would the actual effect of that be internationally? Uproar, you would imagine – and given, again, the complete lack of evidence presented as to why we should introduce the death penalty, rightly so.

So let’s talk about that evidence.

There is plenty of evidence on the effects of the death penalty, and plenty of research. Now, first thing first, we live in a complex society with many variables – poverty, unemployment, policing numbers, addiction, availability of narcotics and weapons are all factors in play when it comes to talking about crime levels.

Last year, a study published in Criminology and Public Policy by Stephen Oliphant focused on four states which halted death penalties – Illinois, Washington, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. There it is reasonable to presume that other factors remained similar both before and after the moratorium was introduced. In each case, there was no increase in homicide rates that could be attributed to the change. So if the deterrent is lifted and there is no change, is there really a deterrent?

Amnesty International points out that states in the US that do not have the death penalty continue to have significantly lower murder rates than those which do. Again, straight comparisons can be problematic, and other factors ought to be considered – but there is little evidence on the face of it for this being a game changer when it comes to pushing down crime numbers.

A 2009 study in the Journal of Law and Criminology pointed out that murder rates in 2007 in states that still had the death penalty exceeded those in states that have abolished it by no less than 42 percent.

Some experts – admittedly a minority of those surveyed in that 2009 study – even think that the death penalty leads to a higher rate of murders because it leaves a section of society feeling brutalised. If you’re being treated as less than human, why should you treat others as having value?

That perhaps does not take into account that for those states who have considered and removed the death penalty, that there may well have been other measures introduced to try to deflect people from crime. Investment, training, social improvements – the kinds of things that may be effective but do not generally play well in tough-on-crime speeches by would-be political leaders.

Oddly enough, this debate comes at the same time as there is talk of having to tolerate greater intrusion in our lives by police officers, with National Security Minister piping up to say that if you get locked up for 48 hours because of a misidentification, well that’s just how our democracy works. Deal with it.

The marriage of a casual acceptance of incorrect detention with pressure for the carrying out of death sentences leads to a dangerous place.

We have seen many times in the courts cases where people have been wrongfully detained. Those individuals have at least been able to reach a legal remedy and be exonerated. Get an execution wrong and all we have is a state that killed the wrong person. No justice lies there.

Execution is such a serious step that we cannot have a debate that revolves around just saying hang them high and not present any evidence.

If we actually feel that deterrence is the goal, then prove it. And not just soundbites such as saying well it will stop the executed person from reoffending. Our current murder rates show the multi-headed hydra we seem to face. What is the actual evidence you have to show that demonstrates the outcome you say you desire?

Because if there is no evidence, and it cannot be proven – what is the purpose of an execution? Revenge? To make us feel good somehow about doing something? If so, what does that truly say about us?