Stranded on death row.

The British public is apparently demanding a Parliamentary vote on whether the Government should reintroduce Capital Punishment. It is over 50 years since Parliament abolished the bill and in the nineties the final crimes of high treason and piracy were erased from the legal manuscripts that deemed that the United Kingdom is not a place where criminals are put to death. Yet, is there a moral or financial argument to be made? Or is this purely a piece of political populism that will be contrived to stimulate an apocryphal public debate.

This all stems from the Government’s willingness to open politics to the floor of the people and enhance their contributions through online petitions. The subjects are vetted to prevent insensible debates arising, but any e-petition that exceeds 100,000 signatures must be debated within Westminster and secure a Parliamentary discussion and vote. So would it be realistic to bring back the noose on British soil?

It was Immanuel Kant who said that in a civilised state, it had a right to punish the individual; the death penalty was a moral imperative. In fact, it was a duty; but not to be done with emotion. It is a way to celebrate human dignity, by executing people society is saying you are the responsible agent, you chose to do what you do and you deserve to die for it. We will not look at you as a means to deter others. Your actions are ends in themselves. Only purely evil things are from an evil will. Kant makes a good argument, yet society has moved into an era where punishment is a time to rehabilitate the guilty, not to kill them. It is deemed that liberal democracies do not put prisoners to death. The word punishment derives from the word ‘pain’ but most people think this would be a step backwards.

Is it an effective deterrent? It is still used across Asia and the Middle East, and most notoriously America. In the US, 33 states still have the death penalty, yet a third don’t use it and another third of prisoners who are sentenced to death never see an electric chair or gas chamber. Perhaps it is unsurprising to learn that half of the US’s executions happen in Texas. People sent to death, often spend years on death row challenging the decision. The death penalty does not necessarily create a cheaper and cleaner method of justice.

I am of the opinion that this is a debate that doesn’t need to take place. There are arguments of what to do to the most heinous of criminals like Harold Shipman or Ian Huntley, but it is still demanding of a Government to ask members of a jury to send people to death. The debate should be why short term sentencing doesn’t work and what should be done to reform Britain’s prisons.