The death penalty in a democratic society
Alex Rackow
The USA proudly considers itself to be ‘the land of the free’, an exemplar of modern democracy, and a country which places great value on individual liberty and freedom. This raises the question as to how a democracy such as the USA can justify executing criminals, often in ways which disregard all dignity (such as the death of Clayton Locket) and victimize those in society who are utterly helpless (such as Howard Neal). One argument commonly put forward by proponents of capital punishment is an economic one that is based upon the relatively cheap cost to the taxpayer of killing criminals found guilty of capital crimes compared to the costs of imprisonment. According to the Texas Department for Criminal Justice 1 the concoction of drugs used in a lethal injection costs only $83. They reason that this makes the death penalty a far more appropriate punishment for the most serious crimes in times of economic hardship around the world. The cost of incarceration in the UK is estimated to be in excess of £40,000 a year per prisoner and each new prison place is thought to cost the taxpayer £119,000. With over 83,000 people in prison in the UK and rising 2 it is not surprising that a recent ‘YouGov’ poll found Britons to be in favour of a reintroduction of the death penalty by 45-39% 3 . So it appears to make economic sense for countries which don’t already employ the death penalty to introduce it and for countries and states that do already have it in place to keep it. However the economic argument is flawed as the cost of the lethal injection is not the only cost incurred. In fact extra costs are encountered due to the extensive appellate process that continues for an average of almost 16 years 4 . In addition, capital cases are generally far more expensive than other cases due to the far higher stakes resulting in a drawn out trial period. So $83 per death seems to be a gross under-estimation and the actual cost of executing someone on death row is estimated to be nearer $3m. It is also quite possible that after trying someone in a capital case, housing them on death row under intense security and exhausting the appeals process, a convict is then moved off death row to life imprisonment without parole. Ergo, on a purely economic basis the death penalty can be argued to be an extremely inefficient way of dealing with the most serious of criminals and any perceived lower costs are illusory. Since the death penalty was first introduced in the USA in 1608 there have been numerous different methods of execution ranging from death by firing squad, hanging, gassing, electric chair and more recently the administration of a lethal injection. This is intended to be the most humane way of executing criminals, offering the possibility of a pain free and comparatively dignified death. However in practice the injections have not functioned properly. The execution of Clayton Locket, who was found guilty of murder, rape, forcible sodomy, kidnapping, assault and battery 5 , earlier this year caused uproar across America and the world. Locket was left writhing in pain after the administration of the trio of drugs that make up the lethal injection, the execution was halted after twenty minutes as they had run out of drugs and then Locket finally died 43 minutes later of a cardiac arrest. This farce was a result of companies refusing to manufacture the anaesthetic usually used in the execution process for ethical reasons and the state of Oklahoma then taking it upon itself to use an untested formula to kill Locket. Proponents of the death penalty may put this down as a one off error, but in fact 7.1% of
1 http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/05/01/considering-the-death-penalty-your-tax-dollars-at-work/ 2 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/28/justice.prisonandprobation 3 http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/08/13/capital-punishment-50-years-favoured/ 4 http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/time-death-row 5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27215508
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