Livingston Thompson - Guest Columnist RECENTLY, A number of persons have been calling for the resumption of hanging. Given also comments made by PNP and JLP spokespersons, it seems that it might be one of the issues on which the Government and Opposition will develop a common position. One gets the impression, though, that many of those persons calling for the resumption of hanging, as the main way of punishing persons convicted of murder, perceive the death penalty as a silver bullet for crime, if one might excuse the analogy. If that is the perception I would advise caution.
Now, there are a number of reasons why someone advocating caution in the resumption of hanging will not easily be heard. Most people favour its reintroduction because there seems to be no other form of punishment that has equal capacity to deliver appeasement to the family and loved ones of those who have been murdered. As the argument runs, those who have no respect for the lives of innocent victims should not enjoy the benefits of living. It is considered outrageous, if not unjust, for the resources of the state to be used to sustain the lives of those whose acts threaten nay undermine the well-being of the state. Murderers have forfeited their right to life.
STRONG MESSAGE OF
COMMUNITY INTOLERANCE
Another reason is that by putting murderers to death a strong message of community intolerance is sent to the perpetrators. Some people consider the reticence on the part of recent governments to execute those death-row persons, who have exhausted their appeal process, as a sign of weakness or being soft on crime. It is further argued that criminals have been emboldened by this failure to press the law through to its bitter end. People feel that murders continue unabated not so much because the criminals are fearless but more so because they suspect that they will not be caught, tried and killed, if found guilty.
However, after witnessing how a mob killed and burned someone who attempted murder, and after hearing the family of murdered victims insisting that nothing short of the resurrection of their loved ones will appease them, I no longer see capital punishment as an appropriate means of personal or communal appeasement. Apart from the likelihood of innocent persons being hanged, there is something about the death penalty that is irksome. It may well be that applying the death penalty will be a deterrent to persons contemplating murder. However, I am not yet at a point of comfort with hanging, the firing squad, the electric chair or some lethal injection, as expressions of the value that I place on human life even when the life in question is a wretched murderer. In other words, the kinds of punishment we use are not only expressions of what we think about those convicted of heinous crimes but also expressions of the values of the community and what we think of ourselves. To say this is not in the least to be sympathetic to the merciless murderers, who do not think twice before erasing the lives of innocent victims. Further, by saying that the death penalty is irksome to me I do not wish to trivialise the hurt and pain that relatives are feeling for the loss of their loved ones.
It is evident though that people who are so lacking in mercy and feeling, so as to take someone else's life, are the products of the community and the society in which we live. There is something about the nature of our society that it throws up such wretched elements, with which reasonable people wish not to associate. My fear is that by simply erasing the lives of the perpetrators we are exonerating the structures of the society that produce them. People must be held accountable for their actions but we would be very foolish to believe that what we are facing, in the spiralling murder rate, is simply individuals acting in a premeditated manner.
There is a social system, a communal reality, in which murderers find succour and support. If the social system is predisposed to producing them, then, like we saw in the movie, The Matrix, or as we see from the fiasco in Iraq, there is an endless stream of other potential murderers who will take their place. Each death that occurs, the way we respond to it and the way we treat the perpetrators when they are caught, adds something to our social milieu. The more hate and venom we pour into the social discourse (for example, blood for blood, fire fi fire), the more of the same hate and venom the society produces.
CHANGING THE DISCOURSE
The journey into this Jamaican abyss of murder and murderers did not come overnight. Therefore, neither the silver bullet of hanging, nor any improvement in our killing and life-erasing mechanism is going to solve it. The time is right to change our discourse from one that honours life for some to one that honours life for all. My position then, is that the heartless killers should not be allowed to determine our methodology of punishment nor to define the value and honour we place on human life.
Livingstone Thompson, a former president of the Moravian Church in Jamaica, may be contacted at lthompson@citc.ie.
