Death penalty just doesn’t work

Dear editor: Re: Bring back the death penalty, Mel Gauthier, Herald, Letters, Jan. 3

The best argument against capital punishment is that it simply doesn't work.

The purpose of government crime policy is to protect society from crime and criminals in the most effective and costeffective way. Capital punishment doesn't do this.

Capital Punishment is much more expensive than the alternative, and most importantly it has never been shown to be a deterrent to crime. In fact statistically the opposite is true.

Gauthier previously wrote, "Our Families and homes are no longer safe places from murderers,” and that, "There were very few murders… many years ago in BC." Statistically this is incorrect.

Canada abolished the death penalty for murder in 1976. The homicide rate in Canada peaked in 1975 at 3.03 per 100,000 and has dropped since then; it reached lower peaks in 1985 (2.72) and 1991 (2.69). It reached a post-1970 low of 1.73 in 2003.

The average murder rate between 1970 and 1976 was 2.52, between 1977 and 1983 it was 2.67, between 1984 and 1990 it was 2.41, between 1991 and 1997 it was 2.23 and between 1998 and 2004 it was 1.82.

The attempted homicide rate has fallen at a faster rate than the homicide rate. Recently, and for B.C. specifically, the number of violent offences had decreased by 4.9 per cent in 2016 from 2015. This was the lowest B.C.’s violent crime rate had been since at least 1998.

These numbers mean nothing when you think of an innocent life taken. I understand how you feel. It's unfair. Retribution in the form of death feels like the right punishment in the heat of emotion.

I would like to think we are more human than an eye for an eye but it is easy to see why capital punishment has survived over the years.

For all the numbers I've written above, as well as stories from the U.S. of botched executions and post-execution DNA exonerations, these are the reasons I am not willing to support something that doesn't work, has never worked, and pretend that I am doing it for the right reasons.

Are there problems with the Canadian justice system? Yes. We can agree on that. However, to replace it with something tried, tested, and not true is also not the answer.

It certainly isn't the answer for the victims or the families who have suffered a great loss. Chelsea Terry Penticton consideration that this was the early 70s.

What was considered inappropriate and sexist today, was not back in those days.

So now I find myself straining to remember if I was ever involved in something that might come back to haunt me 45 years later and ruin my life (thank God I can’t think of anything off the top of my head).

Now don’t get me wrong. If a man is genuinely abusive in any way, shape, or form, then he should answer for that.

It has, however, gotten to the point where, if I see a lady I find attractive, I am scared to death to approach her and ask her out because I am afraid she will be one of those over-sensitive ladies out there who thinks all I am after is a roll in the hay and will file a complaint for “unwanted advances” or something along those lines.

Until things change a little bit, looks like I’m in for some lonely times ahead. The flak from one of these accusations just isn't worth it. Mark Billesberger Penticton