Dear Editor,
In societies all over the world when the murder rate is deemed uncomfortably high citizens engage in fierce discourse on the merits and demerits of the death penalty; Guyana has been no different. Recently I have noticed that this discourse has been joined by a number of distinguished professionals and academics, who almost to a man state their opposition to the death penalty.
The Kaieteur News of June 13 informs is that Minister Ramjattan opposes the death penalty, arguing that he has “statistics to show that the use of such an extreme form of punishment does nothing to stop crime.” Mr Ralph Ramkarran seems to have had the most to say on this matter. He echoes Mr Ramjattan’s contention. He also claims that the “argument in favour of the death penalty has always been revenge.” The truth is that the revenge argument is extremely old and is no longer seen as a serious argument. Since the 1970s modern criminologists are more inclined to talk about the death penalty as a deterrent instead. Mr Ramkarran shared many other views on this matter in his Sunday Stabroek column. However on those I will be silent for now, since they are controversial and a response would demand too much time and space.
Dr Hinds is said to have based his objection to the death penalty mostly on the fact that it is disproportionally meted out to racial minorities and the poor. Dr Hinds is right; there is overwhelming evidence in both the USA and Europe supporting his contention. However, the presence of discrimination and bias in sentencing is not an argument against the death penalty. Rather it is more an argument for ending discrimination along racial and class lines in the administering of justice. Further, Dr Hinds was reported as saying he considers the death penalty primitive and therefore having “no place in a modern civilized society.” This contention I will comment on later.
Since the two distinguished lawyers mentioned above both cling tightly to statistics on the death penalty which in the words of Mr Ramkarran “does not support the assumption that it reduces cases of murder,” I will direct my attention to their claim first. A perusal of the literature will reveal a wealth of information and studies that suggest a different conclusion.
Singapore with the second highest per capita execution rate in the world up to 1998 had one of the lowest murder rates in the world. Similarly Japan has the death penalty even though it uses same sparingly (only in cases of multiple murders; single murders rarely attract the death penalty), but it also has one of the lowest murder rates in the world. In fact Japan and Singapore hold first and second place as the countries in the developed world with the lowest murder rates.
In the United States the state of New Hampshire had the lowest rate of murders (0.9 per 100,000 persons) for year 2014 even though the death penalty has not been abolished there. In the state of Maryland the city of Baltimore recorded below 200 murders for the year 2011, at that time Maryland still had the death penalty. However during the period January 2015 to the end of August 2015 Baltimore had already recorded 215 murders; the state of Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013. A study done in 2006 by Emory University in Atlanta found that “murder rates declined in counties where capital punishment was imposed” (Schmalleger, 2007). So in terms of statistics it is perfectly reasonable for those who support the death penalty to argue that its use or availability leads to a reduction in murders.
Here in Guyana President Granger has indicated an unwillingness to approve “the execution of any prisoner.” While he did not, based on the report I read, elaborate and offer a reason for this unwillingness I suspect that his position, similar to that of Dr Hinds, is influenced by ethical considerations. On this I am at one with them. For me, when arguing against the appropriateness of the death penalty one is on surer ground when one expresses ethical concerns as the cornerstone for one’s objections to this form of punishment, rather than reliance on statistics.
Morally how can the state support its claim of intolerance for killing perpetrated by others by itself carrying out acts of killing? The Jamaican criminologist Professor Bernard Headley puts it best: “If we are to expect all others in the society to respect human life and not deprive another of it, then the state must set the example.” Secondly there is the uncertainty of the guilt of the condemned. Between 1989 and 2007 at least 143 state convicts were exonerated through the use of DNA tests in the United States of America. The death sentence once carried out cannot be reversed, it does not allow a society to correct its mistake. And since we claim to believe that it is best for 100 bad men to go free than for one innocent person to be punished, we have no alternative but to support abolishing the death penalty. This is especially so here in Guyana since DNA testing is not readily available. In any case the presence of DNA evidence at a crime scene is not proof of guilt of a crime.
Editor, the debate on the appropriateness of the death penalty will rage on. As a country pressure will be exerted by those international organizations and nations which feel small countries must follow their lead. As the pressure mounts small nations like Guyana can take courage from Singapore’s response. Fighting off the UN’s criticism on his nation’s high level of executions of those who commit serious crimes, Singapore’s representative at the UN said “the right to life is not the only right, and it is the duty of societies and governments to decide how to balance competing rights against each other.”
In the Kaieteur News of June 15 I noted that the British government by way of its Ambassador is encouraging the Guyanese government to abolish the death penalty. Through the years in my quest for understanding I have come to accept that in human affairs the solution to a problem is all too often the creation of another. If we agree that the death penalty is inhumane and unjust we are likely to move to imposing life sentences for murders, as is being done in most countries that have abolished the death penalty. With Guyana’s high murder rate coupled with its recidivist rate of over 80%, who is going to help Guyana foot the bill for taking care of murderers for life?
Yours faithfully,
Claudius Prince
