Eye for an eye – isn’t solution to murder

HOPING to reduce violent crime, many South Africans are calling for the return of the death penalty. There is an assumption that a person about to commit a violent act will first think “Hang on, if I kill this person I might be caught, tried and executed . . . Okay, I won’t do this”.

What these lobbyists forget is that violence is by definition an irrational action and people committing violence seldom think of being caught.

Perhaps desperate, maybe deranged, possibly overcome with rage, but certainly not logical. Recently a woman stabbed and killed her partner for not giving her a cigarette!

Criminals don’t consider consequences. Penalties don’t give perpetrators pause.

Worldwide statistics show that countries that have the death penalty do not reduce their violent crime. The opposite is actually true.

In Canada, for example, the homicide rate per 100 000 population per year fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further. South African figures for 2013/14 are 32.2 per 100 000.

Legal execution has a long history.

The first recorded reference is in the 18th century BC code of King Hammurabi, where 22 offences were listed as punishable by death.

In Britain, by the 10th century AD, hanging had become the most common way of executing criminals. In Victorian times there were 222 offences that were punishable by death, including impersonating a pensioner, cutting down a tree, robbing a rabbit warren, and stealing a sheep!

Fortunately, as liberal society evolved, fewer and fewer offences were punishable by death until only treason and murder remained.

Is execution a punishment that befits the crime of murder? Strictly applied in the “eye for an eye” sense, to deserve execution a murderer would have had to inform the victim beforehand of the time and date they would be murdered, because that is what happens in executions.

I realise it’s difficult to calmly debate this matter. It is unimaginably traumatic to have a loved one ripped away senselessly and violently. So I understand how in the grip of grief, the gut response is for revenge and retribution, but is this our most creative solution? A lawyer I consulted believes the death penalty is an effective way to remove deviants from society in the way sewage is removed. This position would assume that murderers are beyond redemption.

Yet the causes of violent crime are complex. Economic dimensions of poverty and unemployment, social dynamics like addiction and debt, and even psychological realities of low self-esteem, previous victimisation and irrational fear all play a part in this most destructive human act.

To simply eradicate people acting out the sickness of our unbalanced society may make us feel better for a while, but will violent revenge actually get to the root of our problems as the human race? Have your say Text your opinion to 32972.

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