Particularly now, with the resurgence of fascist ideation,  the right wing choir keeps singing odes to olden times, when criminals (or those merely convicted as such) were executed (and judging by the sentiment, there’s little doubt public executions would make a delightful spectacle for these types).

Of course, in many parts of the civilised world, the death penalty was abolished decades ago. To begin with, obviously, there is always a chance a person might be innocent, when convicted on little evidence. The US in particular has an appalling record of wrongful convictions through a corrupt justice system, linked to an equally corrupt network of private prisons with beds to fill in order to make a profit.

Besides the risk of a wrongful conviction, which should never be taken, there are many other factors to consider.

  1. Killing on command is only slightly different than killing for pathological reasons.

For every executed killer, guilty as he/she may be, an executioner is created, or a killing is added to the “CV” of a seasoned one. Do people feel safer in a society where killing on command is acceptable? It’s killing nonetheless, carried out in cold blood, with no psychological issues behind it.

Refraining from executing someone can also be seen as preventing (or saving) someone else from being in a set of circumstances where such a task would be imposed or offered. I doubt many people grow up with the aspiration of becoming gallows, even  if the process is today sanitised. And perhaps that option should not be on the table in the first place.

2. Some killers are the products of irresponsible hate-mongering.

How many years of propaganda against one group or another does it take for weaker minds to start shooting? For some, many; for others, just a nudge.

Breivik was a product of this type of propaganda, and as despicable as his actions were, that cannot be discounted. Many share his views; he simply took things to another level. Those pushing this propaganda had almost as big a role in them as he did; it was a tragedy waiting to happen.

3. Some killers are the products of their environment.

I remember a documentary about the murder of a child by two other children in the UK, as the result of an idiotic joke gone wrong. Some in the community still argue they should be hunted down when they are released for prison; some argue they should have been hung when they first committed this senseless act.

The anger is understandable as some wounds can never be healed, and that would be one of them. However, one needs to wonder how young children ended up committing such an act in the first place – if not by growing up in the same community which argues for the hanging of then-year-olds (where blood thirst is obviously airborne).

4. The brunt of capital punishment is inflicted not on the convict but on the convict’s family.

It’s the person’s family, especially the parents (when that applies), who suffers for life, after the person is dead and no longer cares. It must be mentally torturous for anyone to know that on a given day, at a given time, their child, sibling or parent is being killed and there is nothing they can do about it. Granted that in some cases this person might need to be isolated for a long time, or even for good, to protect the safety of others.

The question remains whether the grief of another family genuinely brings appeasement to a victim’s relatives – as it certainly does not bring anyone back from the dead.

5. Propagating blood lust will not reduce violence; it will help maintain it.

If civilisation means the taming of our animal nature to a degree, it cannot succeed whilst at the same time promoting destructive impulses such as killing. Perhaps this is why we are not advancing that much mentally as a species, since killing (even mass killing through war) is still seen by many as a solution to an array of problems.