Has rehabilitation worked?

THE plea to revert to capital punishment (“Benefits to society in the death penalty”, May 25) refers. A sizable proportion of South African citizens feel instinctively that we made a terrible mistake in supporting (as a result of omitting to object to our “leaders’ ” ideological decision on the matter) the abolition of this extreme measure to manage extreme crimes.

Even to an avid subscriber to humanism as a philosophy, it has become obvious that we cannot equate ourselves judiciously at this stage in our development with long established democracies boasting highly educated and literate populations (Sweden, Denmark, etc). This is why it is a shibboleth, a myth and a downright lie for ideologues to claim that the penalty is not a deterrent to murder and rape in a country such as ours.

Sure, it might apply to highly educated populations. But even if this were true, why do the guilty try by all means possible to evade the penalty in countries where a possible sentence could be imprisonment instead?

The perpetrators always, without exception, prefer even long term imprisonment to the death penalty. Murder and rape in Middle and Far Eastern countries is a fraction of ours because of the fear of losing one’s life as retribution for these excessive crimes.

Anyone who grew up in the ‘60s in South Africa would be acutely aware that the incidence of rape, especially of very young children and kids by their schoolteachers, was almost unheard of. Why? Because the punishment was extreme and fearful.

Today’s ideologues suggest that rehabilitation should always apply. Has it worked here?