The Death Penalty Debate

The death penalty debate has been incessantly and extensively argued about, especially in a place like Pakistan where violent crimes, particularly against women and children, are rampant. The death penalty (also known as capital punishment) is punishment by execution administered by the state and is usually carried out for drug-related offences, terrorism-related incidents, sexual assault, or murder. One in every four people on death row in the world is in Pakistan, with every eighth person executed globally being in Pakistan as well (Finch, 2019). The reasons for why many still support the use of the death penalty could be the incapacitation of the offender, the deterrent factor, vengeance, and the lack of availability of alternative punishments (Bedau, 2022). That being said, there are a multitude of people speaking out against the use of the death penalty, declaring it to be a being a harsh violation of human rights. Due to the overwhelming pressure to abolish the death penalty, the number of global executions has decreased in recent years. According to  Amnesty International, there was a 26% decrease in executions that took place in 2020.  While 657 people were killed on death row in 2019, this fell to 483 executions in 2020 (which was the lowest recorded number in the last decade). This essay will explore the death penalty in Pakistan, the argument for and against the death penalty, capital punishment in cases of severe mental illness, as well as the personality traits and attitudes that may determine perceptions of the death penalty.     There are 33 crimes (which include murder, sexual assault, and blasphemy) that carry a sentence of the death penalty according to the penal code of Pakistan. Pakistan had the largest death row in the world in 2019 with 632 people sentenced to death, and the number of people waiting to be executed more than 4225 (Hashim, 2020). A major contributing factor for supporters of the death penalty is that of incapacitation, as this eliminates the possibility of the offender harming people such as others. That being said, banishment to higher security prisons can pose as a non-lethal alternative for the incapacitation argument and has been proven to be just as effective. Another justification used for the pro-death penalty debate is that of deterrence, which dictates that harsher punishments lead to a greater deterrent effect. Retribution is also cited for support for the death penalty, specifically in relation to capital crimes (such as sexual assault, murder, treason, and kidnapping for ransom). Supporters of the death penalty tend to be fueled by anger for the crimes committed and they often derive pleasure from the knowledge that the culprit suffered. Further rationalization of capital punishment includes its conspicuous symbolic dimension, as lawmakers are perceived as acting tough on crime (Bedau, 2022). Politicians tend to use this tactic to distract people’s attention from ailing economies (Burki, 2021). That being said, surveys conducted in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, China, and the Philippines show that while there was an overwhelming pro-death penalty rhetoric, it was mostly instinctive and revealed that people possessed little interest or knowledge about the subject. This study also sheds light on how an increase in knowledge and research on capital punishment could lead to lower support for its promulgation (Girelli, 2021).     While keeping in mind the reasonings for the pro-death penalty argument, it is imperative to acknowledge that many countries use the death penalty as a weapon to politically repress dissidents, protestors, and people from ethnic minority groups. The US, for example, is notorious for its egregiously racist use of the death penalty. Many prisons around the world have also been accused of torturing prisoners to obtain confessions and for even giving them unfair trials. Pakistan is one of the many countries that has an issue with forced confessions, as there are no laws against torture (Burki, 2021). An infamous example of this is of Aftab Bahadur, who had been convicted of murder and given the death penalty at the age of 15 and was executed in 2015. His lawyers stated that his confession had been procured under duress and through torture. Two eyewitnesses even confessed to their testimonies being erroneous due to the torture they endured as well. Till the end, his lawyers were not allowed to present evidence that could prove his innocence, making the day of his execution (according to Maya Foa, leader of the death penalty team at Reprieve) “a truly shameful day for Pakistan’s justice system” (Boone, 2015). Those sentenced with the death penalty tend to be from disadvantaged communities with no political or social connections and are unable to buy their way out of the issue (Burki, 2021). Due to immense pressure from international rights groups, Pakistan enforced a moratorium on executions from 2008 to 2014, but this was revoked after the deadly Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar (Janjua, 2021).     Though there has been a history of people with mental illnesses being executed, in February of 2021 the Supreme Court in Pakistan passed a law prohibiting the use of capital punishment on those prisoners afflicted by severe mental illnesses (Burki, 2021). The blasphemy law is one that disproportionately affects people with mental health issues and from religious minorities. People suffering from delusions due to issues such as mania, psychosis, or schizophrenia, as well as people with autism who have altered social functioning and are unable to comply with Pakistan’s sacrosanct societal norms thus can be unfairly accused of blasphemy. While the insanity defense is available if wrongly accused, insufficient psychiatric resources and understanding of such matters makes exercising the right to the insanity plea an arduous task. The issue with blasphemy allegations is that of the vigilante actions of the public that pose an enormous risk of serious bodily harm or death, even if the individual is acquitted by the court. The blasphemy law carries the death penalty and this has been seen to be misused by state officials. Some people accused of blasphemy are hanged even before their cases are convicted by the court (Mushtaque, 2022). As of 2020, there are 80 people on death row for blasphemy charges with 77 having been killed since 1990, one being in a courtroom (Hashim, 2020). Due to the vigilante nature of the mob in regards to blasphemy allegations and the misuse of this law towards mentally ill or disenfranchised people, the death penalty should be reassessed as the appropriate punishment for this crime.     To fully comprehend the psychology of people who support the death penalty, research has uncovered certain personality traits or beliefs that may predict support for or against capital punishment. A study conducted on individual differences that influence attitudes to capital punishment discovered that people who scored higher in extraversion and  conscientiousness, and lower in openness were more likely to support the use of the death penalty. A gender-difference was also observed, with men giving retribution and revenge-oriented reasons for being pro-death penalty. However, self-reported morality surprisingly had a significantly negative association to support for capital punishment. A lower support for women’s right to abortions was also seen to predict approval for the use of the death penalty, highlighting the concept of paradoxical moral plasticity (Kandola and Egan, 2014). People who are opposed to suicide and euthanasia have also been seen to support capital punishment. That being said, there are certain events, such as infamous crime cases, political changes, and moral panic, that could drastically change people’s attitudes towards the death penalty (Trahan, 2017). Another extraneous effect on people’s view of capital punishment is the media they consume. There is a myriad of research that has been conducted to assess the effects of violence in the media on attitudes towards violence, and the studies focused on sentiments towards capital punishment have been concordant with previous findings. Past research has shown that watching crime dramas, police reality programs, and television news channels tends to incite support for the death penalty. Conversely, the support for the death penalty diminishes in people taking in media that depicts negative portrayals of capital punishments, proving that the media does heavily influence people’s political attitudes (Till and Vitouch, 2012). Therefore, it is imperative to be cognizant of the exposure to various media and how it is processed.    While many still support the use of the death penalty, there is a plethora of evidence highlighting its insidious effects and disproving several pro-death penalty arguments. One of the reasons people may be against capital punishment is their distrust in the legitimacy of the justice system, as the death penalty disproportionately affects marginalized communities (Trahan et al, 2019). Discourse in regards to the death penalty has heavily focused on whether or not it deters future crime. While many believe capital punishment has a deterrent effect, researchers in the US have appraised data from different states and extrapolated that eliminating the death penalty has actually been associated with lower murder rates (Parker, 2021). Even countries that have notoriously harsh punishments for crime, like Japan, have observed little to no deterrent effect of capital punishment. Research done on whether the death penalty deterred homicide and robbery-homicide rates has found no evidence of a deterrent effect. This finding was particularly surprising because robbery-homicide is considered to be a crime of calculation and is therefore punished more harshly than homicide, yet the threat of the death penalty did not reduce the  robbery-homicide rates. Punitive law reform was also seen to have no effect on these rates, suggesting that noncapital approaches to tackling crime, such as macroeconomic policies that decrease unemployment rates, could prove to be more effective (Muramatsu et al, 2018).     Another flaw of the deterrence theory is the expectation that potential offenders assess the costs and benefits of committing a crime before its promulgation, as there is no evidence to prove this decision-making process. It has also been discovered that the type of homicides that decreased after an execution were non-felony homicides, while felony homicides (that carry the death penalty sentence) actually increased (Siennick, 2012). Suffice it to say, a review of the evidence regarding the deterrent effect suggests that capital punishment is not an effective approach to curbing crime. Capital punishment is rarely effectively administered in a non-discriminatory and consistent way, exacerbating the chances of wrongful executions (Nagin, 2014). Due to the fact that there is no systematic procedure to ascertain the validity of a criminal conviction, the number of false convictions discovered tends to be very low (Gross et al, 2014). As mentioned above, the death penalty disproportionately affects marginalized communities, making them a large portion of those wrongfully convicted on death row. Research on exonerations in the US found that 47% of the people absolved of their crimes were African Americans on death row for murder, sexual assault, and drug-related crimes (Gross et al, 2017).     According to Justice Project Pakistan, the rate of wrongful conviction in Pakistan is 85%, as that is the percentage of cases on death row exonerated by the Supreme court due to flawed investigations (Finch, 2019). The most infamous case of a wrongful conviction is that of Asia Bibi, who was on death row on blasphemy charges for nearly eight years. Her acquittal garnered thousands of protestors advocating to hang her (Griffiths, 2018). A particularly heinous incident that haunts Pakistan is that of Mashal Khan, who was a journalism student at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan. He was extremely outspoken on corruption in Pakistan, which many at the university misconstrued as blasphemous. This incited a mob to badly beat his close friends and eventually lynch Mashal in his dormitory. After the nation-wide backlash against this senseless act of violence, a report by the Joint Investigation Team stated that there was no evidence of blasphemy and that his death was a result of an elaborate conspiracy against him for calling out state officials for their corruption (Kakar, 2021). This incident is further proof of the potential pernicious consequences vigilante actions by the public tend to have in blasphemy cases, even if the accusations are proven to be erroneous.     Along with the risk of wrongful convictions and lack of a deterrent effect on crime rates, a major reason people advocate for life in prison instead of capital punishment is the cost of keeping an inmate on death row for the state. An interesting factor that many death penalty debaters are unaware of is that of its economic cost. As opposition against capital punishment has increased globally, the costs of executing offenders have also risen. The costs and time required to assess the capital cases tend to put a strain on the rest of the criminal justice system, specifically considering the average wait for a death row inmate to be executed is 20 years. Research conducted in the US has shed light on the amount of money spent to keep a prisoner on death row, with multiple studies stating the figure to be around one million US dollars more than if the prisoner was given a life without the possibility of parole sentence. Along with these costs, because of the disproportionate manner the death penalty is used against marginalized communities, the non-economic costs of the death penalty on the offender’s family, jurors, lawyers, and court corrections personnel are tremendous (Collins et al, 2016).     There are a myriad of explicit and implicit costs that make the handling of a death row inmate so expensive. Explicit costs include incarceration costs, as inmates on death row are kept in prisons with higher security, requiring more supervision, rooms, as well as physical and mental health facilities. Pre-trial costs, jury selection, the trial itself, and any appeals also add to the increased explicit costs of capital cases. As European countries have objected to the use of their chemicals for executions using the lethal injection or gas chamber methods, the cost of executing a prisoner has also increased exponentially. The fact that doctors and lawyers must be present during an execution drives up the overall cost as well. This, along with services for the media, counselling for the staff present, and travel costs of lawyers and doctors, makes the estimated cost of a single execution around $98,000. While lethal injection is the proposed method of execution, other methods include death by firing squad, hanging, gas chamber, and the electric chair. Implicit costs, on the other hand, include the costs of mitigating the issue of overcrowding, such as that of personnel, beds, physical confines, solitary confinement facilities, and supervision. Post-execution costs are also included in implicit costs, such as lawsuits in the event of a wrongful death or a botched execution (McFarland, 2016).     While the death penalty debate is one that has continued unabated, there are a multitude of factors to consider before advocating for the support of its implementation. Capital punishment has been proven to disproportionately affect disenfranchised groups, specifically with Pakistan’s misuse of the blasphemy law for people with mental illnesses and religious minorities. It is crucial to also consider the lack of its deterrent effect observed as well as the enormous explicit and implicit costs that put a strain on the country’s resources. One of the major reasons to assess the use of the death penalty is the risk of wrongful convictions. Even if the number of false convictions is infinitesimal, the death penalty should be eradicated as the proposed form of punishment to eliminate the chances of any wrongful executions. Therefore, every country and its people should conduct a reevaluation of the cause and effect of the death penalty and perhaps adopt alternative methods to reduce and deter crime.  

References:

Amnesty International, 2022. Death Sentences and Executions 2020. Available online at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/04/death-penalty-in-2020-facts-and-figures/.

Bedau, H.A., 2022. Death Penalty. Encyclopedia of Violence, Peach, & Conflict (Third Edition), 3, pp. 336-341.

Boone, J., 2015. Pakistan executes man who was 15 when convicted of murder. The Guardian, available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/10/pakistan-executes-aftab-bahadur-sentenced-to-death.

Burki, T., 2021. The death penalty continues unabated globally. The Lancet, 397(10284), pp. 1531-1532.

Collins, P.A., Boruchowitz, R.C., Hickman, M.J., and Larranaga, M.A., 2016. An Analysis of the Economic Costs of Seeking the Death Penalty in Washington State. Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 14(3).

Finch, L.L., 2019. Who are we hanging? Justice Project Pakistan launches database on the death penalty. Available at: https://huridocs.org/2019/07/who-are-we-hanging-justice-project-pakistan-launches-database-on-the-death-penalty/.

Girelli, G., 2021. ‘Alternative facts’: Public opinion surveys on the death penalty for drug offenses in selected Asian countries. International Journal of Drug Policy, 92, 103155.

Griffith, J., 2018. Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi has death penalty conviction overturned. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/31/asia/pakistan-asia-bibi-blasphemy-intl/index.html.

Gross, S.R., O’Brien, B., Hu, C., and Kennedy, E.H., 2014. Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death. Social Sciences, 111(20), pp. 7230-7235.

Gross, S.R., Possley, M., and Stephens, K., 2017. Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States. Available online at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/other/122/.

Hashim, A., 2020. Explained: Pakistan’s emotive blasphemy laws. Available online at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/21/explained-pakistans-emotive-blasphemy-laws.

Hashim, A., 2020. Fair trial concerns plague world’s largest death row in Pakistan. Available online at: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/10/9/fair-trial-concerns-plague-worlds-largest-death-row-in-pakistan.

Janjua, H., 2021. Pakistan ends death penalty for prisoners with severed mental health problems. The Guardian, available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/pakistan-ends-death-penalty-for-prisoners-with-severe-mental-health-problems.

Kandola, S.S. and Egan, V., 2014. Individual differences underlying attitudes to the death penalty. Personality and Individual Differences, 66, pp. 48-53.

McFarland, T., 2016. The Death Penalty vs. Life Incarceration: A Financial Analysis. Susquehanna University Political Review, 7(4).

Muramatsu, K., Johnson, D.T., and Yano, K., 2018. The death penalty and homicide deterrence in Japan. Punishment & Society, 20(4), pp. 432-457.

Mushtaque, I., 2022. Cases of blasphemy and mental illness on the rise in Pakistan. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 73, 103120.

Nagin, D., 2014. Deterrence and the death penalty: Why the statistics should be ignored. Significance, 11(2), pp. 9-13.

Parker, B., 2021. Death Penalty Statutes and Murder Rates: Evidence from Synthetic Controls. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 18(3), pp. 488-533.

Siennick, S.E., 2012. Deterrence and the Death Penalty. Criminology & Public Policy, 11(3), pp. 535-537.

Till, B. and Vitouch, P., 2012. Capital Punishment in Films: The Impact of Death Penalty Portrayals on Viewer’s Mood and Attitude Toward Capital Punishment. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 24(3), pp. 387-399.s

Trahan, A., 2017. Public Attitudes Toward Legal Abortion, Euthanasia, Suicide, and Capital Punishment: Partial Evidence of a Consistent Life Ethic. Criminal Justice Review, 42(1), pp. 26-41.

Trahan, A., Dixon, A., and Nodeland, B., 2019. Public Opinion of Capital Punishment: An Intersectional Analysis of Race, Gender, and Class Effects. Criminal Justice Review, 44(4), pp. 452-469.