LIFE IMPRISONMENT IS A GOOD ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Can life imprisonment be a good alternative to death penalty? The issue remains

unresolved. Even the US Supreme Court that had abolished ‘Death Penalty’

reversed its decision when new and less cruel methods of execution were

introduced.

Why does a society punish its members for certain acts that are offensive and

unacceptable to its laws and codes? This can be a starting point of exploring our

dilemma about death penalty vs. life imprisonment.

It is argued that fear of death deters people from committing crimes, and the

penalty of death exerts a positive moral influence.

The American death penalty laws have invited ire and ridicule of human rights

activists everywhere, including in the USA, and Courts in most democratic

countries, including India, have been very sparing in pronouncing death sentences

in the ‘rarest of rare cases”. Yet, crimes of murder and rape and the cruel manner

in which they were carried out, at times, make ordinary citizens support and

commend death penalty and believe that fear and intimidation of capital

punishment shall keep other citizens from violating the social and normative

codes of their State and society.

But there are contrary views and arguments, according to which capital

punishment does not deter crime and death penalty is not necessary. Countries

that no longer have death penalty have not experienced an increase in the

number of murders. Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland and Belgium

have not carried out executions since the early part of the century, yet these

countries have not experienced a rise in crime rates. But the retributive value of

capital punishment dismisses the question of deterrence. Deterrence works only

if forbidden acts are illegal as well as immoral. So the easily frightened will not

break the law, but “the fearless will break the law, the irrational will break the

law, and all others will break the law”, it has been argued.

Capital punishment is retributive justice, and murder rates bear no logical

correlation to the death penalty’s deterrent value. There are no actual statistics

about the deterrent value of capital punishment as it is impossible to know who

may have been deterred or not deterred from committing a crime.

If some one is thinking of committing murder and is aware that he will be

released because of early parole, then it will not deter any future crime from

happening.

Most criminals would ponder before committing murder if they knew their own

lives was at stake and, it is argued that because very few people are executed so

death penalty does not work satisfactorily as a deterrent. “During highly

publicised death penalty cases the homicide rate is found to go down but it goes

back up when the case is over (Bailey).”

According to some researchers “executions maximize public safety through a

form of incapacitation and deterrence. Incapacitating a person is depriving

him/her of the physical or intellectual power. Executing a person takes away the

capacity of, and forcibly prevents recurrence of violence. Deterrence is the act or

process of discouraging and preventing an action from occurring. The possibility

of execution, thus, gives a potential pause in the thought process of the

murderer, using fear as an incentive for preventing recurrence or quite possibly

the first occurrence of murder.”

Opponents of the death penalty argue that although it is said to exist as a crime

deterrent, in reality it has no effect on crime at all. “Modern supporters of capital

punishment no longer view the death penalty as a deterrent, but as a just

punishment for the crime. Previously, the deterrence argument put the burden of

proof on death penalty advocates, but recently this argument has become less

effective as in recent years the appeal of deterrence has been supplanted by a

frank desire for what large majorities see as just vengeance.”

The opponents to death penalty argue that criminals who are in the “business” of

killing make sure that they do not get caught; they skilfully concoct plans to

make sure they are not suspected of criminal activity. A person who gets caught

for killing another individual is usually someone who did not plan to murder in the

first place. These individuals fall into the “crimes of passion” category. Crimes of

passion are defined as unlawful acts of an individual which are unplanned and

erupt as a result of a fit or rage or anger. These illegal actions usually stem from

drunkenness or a short term loss of logical thinking, which can be attributed to

anger. The death penalty would logically deter crime, but the problem is that

most murderers are unplanned and are not a result of logic.

During the 1930s the federal government, under the direction of Jack Gibbs,

investigated the effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring serious crime. The

results of Gibbs investigation is that capital punishment did not deter. However,

during the 1970s, Prof. Isaac Ehrlich found out through his research that capital

punishment did deter but no one else besides Ehrlich has come up with the same

results. The conclusion that researches have drawn up during the past decade is

that the death penalty does not significantly have an effect on serious crime, one

way or the other.

Another reason that many people are against death penalty is that they feel that

many a times innocent people are wrongfully executed, all in the name of justice,

even though there are many safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of

those facing death penalty.

Abolitionists of death penalty want the procedures of punishment more humane

and victim-oriented. They argue that the offender be required to compensate the

victim’s family with his/her own income from employment or community service.

To that end, the offender has to be kept alive. By working, the criminal also “pays

back” the society. For the imprisoned criminal there is no need of monetary

compensation for his work. Money is of no value in jail. An example cited in this

behalf is the case of Leopold and Loeb, both nineteen years old when they

committed “The Crime of the Century” in 1924—kidnapping and murder of a

fourteen year old boy just to see what it was like. They were not awarded death

penalty but sentenced to life imprisonment. They worked at hospitals, taught

illiterates to read, created a correspondence school, made important contribution

in the World War II Malaria Project, and wrote a grammar book. “An inestimable

amount of people were directly helped by Leopold and Loeb; both of them

making a conscious commitment to atone by serving others”.

Abolitionists also oppose capital punishment as it is cruel and extraordinary. The

Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution condemns cruel and unusual

punishment and the abolitionists find it handy to quote in support of their view.

However, the US Constitution was drafted when capital punishment was widely

practiced and it was not specified as wrong or cruel or unusual. The framers of

the Constitution mostly endorsed capital punishment, as also the philosophers of

the time.

Opponents of death penalty point out that expert after expert and study after

study have emphasized the lack of correlation between the threat of the death

penalty and the occurrence of violent crime. Also, the belief that execution costs

less than imprisonment is false. The cost of the apparatus and maintenance of the

procedures attending the death penalty, including death row and the endless

appeals and legal machinery, far outweighs the expense of maintaining in prison

the tiny fraction of criminals who would otherwise be slain.

“Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized society, immoral in

principle, unfair and discriminatory in practice. It can deprive completely

innocent persons of life because legal procedures involved are not foolproof. It

has no purpose and no effect.” (American Civil Liberties Union National Office 2-

16-95).

Opponents of capital punishment contend that the death penalty demeans the

moral order because it is cold, premeditated homicide. It lowers the state and

raises the criminal to moral equality with the social order.

In view of the above arguments and counter-arguments, and dispassionately

considered, life imprisonment with some added social purpose appears to be a

better alternative to death penalty.