Monday, May 26, 2014

Will America abolish the death penalty?

When it comes to the death penalty, the US is in truly dubious company in terms of the number of it people it executes every year: China, Saudi Arabia and Iran. This is in stark contrast to Western Europe which has abolished the death penalty.

The Economist notes that pendulum has slowly swung towards abolition for a number of reasons:
  •  Support for the death penalty has dropped from 80% in 1994 to 60% last year.
  • The number of executions has fallen from 98 to 39
  • The empirical evidence is that the US has a higher murder rate than the EU despite the latter having abolished the death penalty. The murder rate is higher in American states that have the penalty than those that don't
  • Executing somebody is three times more expensive than locking him up for life, thanks the long-winding appeals process.  
As somebody who is opposed to the death penalty, I welcome the trend.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ok I too agree death penalty is a barbarian act .But the question is ,then what sort of punishment should be given to extreme heinous acts .If there is no death penalty, there is no difference between rapists /terrorists/murderers & a burglar .Both will be given imprisonment that justifies both are treated equally .Death penalty wont solve any problem but atleast it is a lesson to our society .It is said that imprisonment is better than poverty since food ,shelter ,medical aid etc are granted .There are millions on the pavement who have no food &water .The worst thing to me is that the common people through their tax is funding these entire system .If your income is feeding a man who dont deserve to be called as man,is this democracy