What happened to Jyoti Singh (Nirbhaya as we know her) on that fateful December night in 2012, was so horrific that it shook up an entire nation. The anguish that her family; particularly her mother underwent – and continue to undergo today – is quite unimaginable for most people. There is no doubt in the world that the heinous crimes ought to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, this incident once again triggers the debate for and against the death penalty; capital punishment as it is known.
The argument in favour of the death penalty is three-fold: deterrence, retribution and efficiency. Firstly, proponents of the death penalty feel that if a crime attracts the death penalty, a person would hesitate before committing the crime. Ergo the severity and finality; the irreversibility of the punishment is a deterrent.
Secondly, there is the proportionality view – that the punishment must fit the crime. If one can commit murder, the punishment must fit that crime. If the murdered victim did not have a choice, why must the criminal perpetrator; goes this line of argument. The family of the victim finds comfort in the fact that their loved one has been avenged. There is public satisfaction in such retribution as well; there is no doubt. The way people celebrated the extra-judicial killings of the accused on the Hyderabad horror is a stark example.
Thirdly there is the practical aspect of the matter. The death penalty gets rid of the criminal once and for all. There is no requirement to house and feed the criminal at public expense. Also, there is no chance that the criminal will escape and further trouble the authorities; the possibility of committing any further crimes is extinguished. All neatly tied up in a bow.
Most developed nations have discontinued the death penalty or are moving towards it. In other words, the civilised world is moving away from the death penalty. If one takes a look at history, legal systems have evolved in this way. Where earlier, the death penalty was applied to more crimes, over time it was used less and less. Civil society recognised the death penalty as a barbaric and primitive sort of punishment.
More evolved systems of jurisprudence also acknowledged that if we say murder is wrong; we should also accept that all murder is wrong; even that which is committed by the state. The right to life is paramount. Nothing and no one has the right to deprive anyone else; even a horrific criminal, of that right. Because otherwise, the system debases itself to the level of that same criminal it wishes to punish.
Secondly, death is irreversible. So, if sometime in the future, a confession or evidence comes to light proving the innocence of a convicted person, there is no way to restore the life that was wrongfully snatched away. In other words, the legal machinery should not and cannot take away something that it cannot restore.
Thirdly there is the philosophical view that the death penalty is nothing but a justification for blood-lust. People may find revenge and retribution satisfying but that is no reason to indulge that vengeful instinct. In earlier times criminals were hung in public precisely for this reason: it satisfied the blood-lust of the people who wanted to see revenge taken on behalf of victims and society at large. It can be argued that this is both immoral and uncivilised.
Statistics have repeatedly shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent. Its existence on statute books does not discourage the commission of crimes. In fact, the opposite may be true. The death penalty could exacerbate crime in some cases: for instance, if a rapist knows that he is likely to be punished with the death penalty, he may be tempted to destroy all evidence/witness of his crime by killing the victim. We actually saw this in the Hyderabad case: not only did the men kill the girl after raping her, they burnt her body to try and erase evidence of their crime. So really, the deterrent argument fails on more than one count.
It is also a fact that the death penalty is pronounced far more frequently than it is actually carried out. In a majority of cases, the death penalty is commuted to life in prison. However, this is not the cases that catch public attention. In these cases, the outcry for ‘justice’ by way of hanging is very vocal and the authorities come under pressure to execute those criminals. Hence this so-called ‘justice’ is meted out in quite an unjust, unequal manner. Just because a case got more publicity, the perpetrators of that particular crime are more likely to hang.
And finally, we have to accept the fact that the poor and the weaker sections of society are far more likely to hang than the rich and the powerful. Those in positions of power; with the money to defend the indefensible, commit crimes with far greater impunity and successfully evade detection. The poorer sections of society are low-hanging fruit. Punishing them and making an ‘example’ of them is pointless. It is also not how a civilised society behaves.
The eagerness to get rid of criminals guilty of heinous crimes actually reflects a deep-rooted social problem: our refusal to accept that these criminals are the product of our society. The mindsets and the crimes committed are the results of a sickness in our own society. The criminals are of and from our society. When we kill the criminal, we only remove one symptom of that sickness; while denying the existence of the disease.
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