What are your views on Capital punishment?
Do you think Saddam Hussein should have been executed?
Some countries execute more people than we can easily imagine. In the USA there were 98 executions in 1999 which fell to 53 in 2006. But in China, where 80% of the world's executions take place, such statistics that are available indicate that there were, during the 1990's, 22,000 executions per year. To put that in perspective, in 7 years that rate of killing would wipe out the entire population of Peterborough.
The main argument in favour of capital punishment is that it is a deterrent, so it falls under the general ethical case of the greatest good to the greatest number, given that prevention of murder is a general good. The statistics do not support this. Just as an example from published statistics, US data from 1973 to 1984 show that murder rates in those states without the death penalty were consistently lower and averaged only 63% of the corresponding rates in the states retaining it. More strangely still, studies from London and New York State have found an increase in homicides after highly publicized executions, rather than the decrease that would be consistent with deterrence, so the argument from the greater good fails.
Other arguments I have heard are cost (it's not fair that we should pay £30,000 pa to keep a notorious murderer in jail) and vengeance (he killed my son, it's only right that I should see him die. I want to know he will rot in hell). It seems to me that you cannot argue right and wrong on the basis of cost. You might differentiate between two courses of action both of which were shades of grey, on grounds of cost among other things. But you can't decide whether or not to take someone's life on a monetary basis. As for vengeance, that seems to me to be a thoroughly deplorable reason for doing anything. I know about feelings of vengeance. We all have them. I knew someone once whose sister died in suspicious circumstances. The police could not find enough evidence to bring charges, but for various reasons it looked as tho' her husband had been complicit in some way. That person told me of his extreme desire to beat the leaving hell out of that husband. He didn't do it, his better side, his humanity and good sense prevailed, but we can all imagine what he felt like. That doesn't alter the fact that the desire for vengeance comes from our worse, not our best, side.
On top of that there are miscarriages of justice. If someone is wrongly imprisoned he can be released and compensated. If someone has been put to death his life has been ended wrongly and there is no release or compensation.
Anyone who saw the execution of Saddam Hussein will also be aware that it is a brutal process. Even death by lethal injection is in question. The State of Florida, which formally had quite a high execution rate, has recently stopped executions because it has become evident that the process of lethal injection is flawed. I don't see how anyone could take part in such an event without losing some of his humanity. Saddam was a horrific mass murderer, yet I felt that what was done to him was disgusting, and I felt sorry for him. Maybe he deserved it, but that doesn't make it right to do it.
So, I can't see an argument that capital punishment works as a deterrent, nor can I see that it is anything other than brutal, dehumanising and error-prone. I am sure it is not the best we can do, even in the case of a violent mass murderer, and I am sure we should always be trying to do the best we can.
