OPINION:The experiences of countries which retain capital punishment do not support its use, writes IAN O'DONNELL
THE FORMER president of the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, has called for the ban on capital punishment to be revisited. His argument is that Ireland has become an increasingly brutish place where lethal violence has lost its power to shock. This coarsening of society is related to the disappearance of the gallows, the suggestion being that the possibility of execution deterred criminals and thereby suppressed the level of serious crime.
Mr Justice Johnson looks back fondly on the 1940s and 1950s and observes that these were times when the murder rate was a fraction of what it is today.
While the mid-20th century was certainly a time of low recorded crime, it was also a time of high outward migration and to some extent the crime problem was exported, along with potentially troublesome young men who sought work and adventure elsewhere.
In recent years the country’s population has grown dramatically, and this has been accompanied by surges in alcohol and drug consumption, each of which has contributed to an upward shift in the homicide rate.
If we take a lengthier historical perspective the trend is of a long-term decline in homicide that has been interrupted in recent decades. Comparing the 1890s with the 1990s, for example, the level of homicide was higher in the earlier period, old people were particularly vulnerable, and while capital punishment was an option it was seldom used. Penalties tended to be light, with about half of all convicted killers receiving less than a year’s imprisonment. Such lenient treatment would be unheard of today.
In other words, the evidence does not point towards a casual disregard for life peculiar to today’s world and which was absent when judges could don the black cap. What does seem clear is that there has been a decline in public tolerance of violent conduct, and a hardening of attitude towards those brought before the courts.
The idea that capital punishment exercises a deterrent effect is intuitively appealing. While hard to test scientifically, the consensus appears to be that the case for deterrence is not sufficiently persuasive to support a practice that defies the most fundamental human rights standards.
In countries where it remains, such as the US, the death penalty is imposed infrequently, even in eligible cases, and somewhat haphazardly – disproportionately to those from minority groups and occasionally to individuals who are later found to be innocent.
Mr Justice Johnson suggests that armed robbers who take life in the pursuit of profit might be suitable candidates for the noose. But we know from studies of offender decision-making that the remote prospect of a penalty, however severe, is given little weight during the commission of a crime. In addition, there may be unintended negative effects, with the threat of capital punishment escalating the risk for surviving victims in the event that one of their number is killed during a raid. Under such circumstances the prospect of a witness living to tell the tale becomes much more serious for the perpetrators.
Also, juries might be reluctant to convict in capital cases given the terminal consequences of such a decision – thus raising the possibility of wrongful acquittals.
Even on economic grounds, capital punishment is difficult to justify. The substantial costs associated with the appeals process can make execution more expensive than life imprisonment without parole.
Since the death penalty was reintroduced in the US in 1976 a total of 1,170 men and 11 women have been executed. The usual method is lethal injection, but electrocution, firing squad, hanging and the gas chamber have also been used. Things do not always go according to plan, and botched executions add to the horror. Even the lethal injection, which is thought of as clinical and “humane”, is hugely problematic. If the cocktail of drugs is not properly administered the prisoner is immobilised but not rendered unconscious, and they experience an excruciatingly painful death. There are reports of cases where the executioner fails to find a vein despite repeated probing, and of needles that have not been properly inserted popping out and spraying deadly chemicals across the room.
When all of these factors are taken into consideration, the abolitionist argument is difficult to refute. This is why the number of countries that continue to use the death penalty has halved over the past 20 years. Even in the US there are indications of a rise in public, and political, support for a moratorium on executions.
If a country as punitive as the US is beginning to take the abolitionist argument seriously, it would suggest that reopening this debate in Ireland is unlikely to do much more than provide a platform for the kinds of destructive and vengeful sentiments that Mr Justice Johnson cautions against.
Ian O’Donnell is professor of criminology at UCD