Government should hear people’s cry for death penalty

The call for the introduction of the death penalty is getting louder.

The nation’s demand for justice for the brutal murder of Thoriso Themane and the call to bring back the death penalty symbolises the desperation and hopelessness of South Africans. This is an indication of a government that has lost the war against crime.

In the same week that the angry community of Limpopo marched for justice for Themane, days later another senseless and gruesome murder was reported.

A rising star Sibusiso Khwinana, who was a lead actor in the locallyproduced movie Matwetwe, had been robbed of a cellphone and stabbed to death in Pretoria, sending shockwaves across SA.

On average, 57 people are killed in SA every day. Defenceless and impatient South Africans who live in fear of crime are calling on the government to bring back the death penalty as a way of dealing with serious crime. This is a call that cannot be ignored.

This is because many believe that a lot of heartless murderers and cold-blooded criminals often get away with murder. Even after being locked away, many would argue that too often the sentences handed down against these criminals do not match the crimes committed.

Some even point to the fact that many unrepentant criminals who have committed these hideous crimes get released, but only to commit other similar crimes soon after their release.

At the core of the communities’ anger against criminals being released is the feeling that the convicted criminals, after being released from prison, don’t own up to what they have done and often don’t give back to the same communities they have wronged.

Award-winning author and preacher Reverend Renee Pittelli from the US, says a lot of offenders stop at repentance, but there is restitution which requires offenders to make amends by giving back to the person or the community they have wronged.

Pittelli writes: “Restitution is unfamiliar and often uncomfortable to many. It comes as a quite surprise to offenders to be told that they are expected to undo the damage they did.”

There’s an important lesson that we can take from Pittelli’s argument as far as restitution is concerned. With the average population of more than 160,000 prisoners locked away in South African prisons, the country has consequently locked away potential repeat murderers.

The state should make it compulsory and mandatory for all ex-offenders to work for the state free of charge, for at least up to a year after being given a parole, as opposed to the current dysfunctional model, where exoffenders are only required to volunteer to do community work at their “spare time”.

To deal with serious crime like murder, what needs to happen urgently is the immediate review of the parole system. This would include making use of convicts as a means of them earning their way back into society; by contributing to the welfare and the economy of the country.

There also needs to be a justicebased capital punishment which should come with an automatic appeal process. This is to ensure that when capital punishment is implemented, it is to deserving offenders and it will only apply to repeat offenders.

Zungula is president of African Transformation Movement

Hand capital punishment to repeat offenders