Sunday, November 23, 2008
More on the death penalty
A number of people have commented on my post The death penalty - and Baby P. I'd like to respond to some of those comments, which you can find at the link above.The first is simple: I'm sure that quite a few people would be happy to admit to reading the Daily (and Sunday) Mail. That's fine. :-)
The second is a brief discussion on being "reformed" and being "redeemed". James talks about reforming alongside punishment, and that's a good liberal view, which I'd generally agree with, but for many, particularly those who generally wouldn't subscribe to the "liberal" tag, I think that reform isn't a particularly strong argument. Beyond that, there's the question of whether all are reformable: and, not being a criminal psychologist, I don't feel qualified to pronounce on this one, though I have the suspicion that not all are.
Which brings us to redemption. It's a very Christian word - at least in the way in which we were using it - and I'd been careful not to use any religious or theological arguments in my original post. That doesn't mean that we can't use it here: and I think that it's worth saying that I think we need to be careful about suggesting that by employing the death penalty, we're removing the chance that someone might be redeemed. God, of course, works in His own time, and I think this is a dangerous train of thought. In fact, noone actually said this explicitly, but no matter.
Last is the comment from Anonymous. I have no problem with people posting comments anonymously, as long are they're not abusive, which this one certainly wasn't. I do, however, disagree with the points that Anonymous makes. In the order that the commenter made them:
- like it or not, these "THINGS" are people. Like us: and that's part of the problem. They are part of what we are, and we are part of what they are, as we are part of the same society. That society may be sick, but it's _our_ society
- as I mentioned above, it's not (necessarily) about giving people a second chance. It may be that some are not reformable: they may need to be removed from normal society for the rest of their (natural) lives. That's not part of my argument, though reforming of criminals - or maybe allowing them to re-form their lives - is an aim to which I'd generally subscribe
- I agree with Simon D that having the death penalty does _not_ reduce the incidence of the crimes for the it might be applied
- and the big one: what would my reactions be if it were my child to whom this had happened? This is a really hard one. The first thing to do is to admit that I'm certain that it would change my world. I'm pretty sure that I would feel hatred and anger towards whoever did it, and even if, somehow, I didn't have that depth of emotion against them, I couldn't blame anyone who did. But I don't think that the person who feels that way would be fully me: or not as fully me as I'd wish to be. And if I did have some say in whether the death penalty were applied, and it was, _I'd_ never have the chance to grow past the pain and the anger and the hatred. Not fully, not properly. And even if I never did, the chance would still be there.
- And, on a side note, the completely understandable anger and pain is the reason why the victims of such outrages _shouldn't_ be given a say in whether the death penalty is applied. Look at the healing - emotional, psychological and spiritual - that reconciliation can (sometimes) bring, and there is a reason why I'd argue that the abolition of the death penalty can actually be good for victims, too.
Anonymous talks about criminals redeeming themselves, but as I tried to explain in this post, there's a difference between reforming yourself and _being_ redeemed. I think that James and Avey - and certainly I - are not talking about someone redeeming themselves. We're talking about redemption in a Christian sense, where it is always God who redeems: not something that someone can do on their own. It's really not about people who have committed crimes being able to make things better themselves.
The other thing I'd say is that prisons are not easy. Particularly for those who have injured, abused or killed children. I suspect that the people commenting on this thread have, between them, spent an awful lot of time in prison between them, and can attest to the fact that it is not an easy life.
Of _course_ this should never happen again. But do you really believe that if we had the death penalty, then people who injure, abuse and kill children would suddenly stop think "oh, I'd better stop now, because if I cross this line, then I'll be executed?"
Some might say that they deserve it, but once again I'd have to disagree.
An incredibly high percentage something like 80% of sex offenders were themselves abused as children (who is the victim here?) and prison is a particularly hard place for these. They are in theory protected but there is always a chance that an officer will "forget" to keep them segregated and some of the injuries that I have seen are horrific. Again some might argue that they deserve it, but again I would disagree. I do believe we live in a civilised society, and this means that we do not punish a crime with another crime. If we meet violence with violence then the violence will simply escalate. Of course I am appalled and deeply saddened by the suffering and death of Baby P and the perpetrators need to be brought to justice for their good and the good of society. But the only way to reduce further instances of this kind of thing is to properly resource and supervise our social services, not just to kill the offenders.
As regards the crime rate argument. There's actually no way of telling whether instances of abuse have risen or fallen as we've, thankfully, become much better at reporting them. There's no telling in the past how many children have suffered in silence. I suspect that the murder rate has actually increased, but also suspect that this has rather more to do with the increase in number and availability of guns, than with the abolition of the death penalty.
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