Is the death penalty wrong for reasons beyond race? (Q&A 1)
The last few chapters have been very focused on race. While the issue of the death penalty should probably be addressed partially due to issues relating to race, I think it should be approached from a different angle.
The death penalty is wrong simply because we don't want murder in our society. Even when justice is the justification for the killing it provides a legitimate means through which a person can be killed. If the state is justified in killing in response to a killing, isn't a citizen? Or at least a citizen could think this while trying to justify his actions in an unstable state.
I agree that the death penalty is immoral. This is primarily because the point of the justice system is, at least in theory, supposed to be to protect people from those who have committed criminal acts. Even if one is opposed to the more rehabilitation-focused justice system strategies in some other countries (I am not; the article on that Norwegian prison was great, by the way), one can at least admit that a life sentence is essentially as effective as the death penalty in this respect. The only reason for the death penalty to exist is to satisfy some people's desire for revenge - hardly an appropriate basis for a government policy which literally controls the life or death of other people. Some also try to justify its existence by claiming that it is a more effective deterrent to crime than other sentences, but there is absolutely no evidence to prove this is the case; in fact, if the statistics on crime and prison return rates in countries with more lenient justice systems are anything to go by, it may actually be less effective in preventing crime than other, immeasurably more humane crime prevention methods.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I also posted this on my blog if you'd rather read it there.