Outrage and Bloodthirst: Redundancy of Capital Punishment

A heinous crime occurs. The very next moment, there is outrage and rightly so. With it comes a demand – ‘Death to the criminals’ (paraphrased, could be in any form depending on the protest or the nature of the crime). This happened after the terrorist attacks in Peshawar in Pakistan (2014), the gruesome rape and murder in India in 2012, the Boston Marathon bombing 2015, etc. The crux of the argument is that the perpetrators are a threat to the society – of course, there are no grounds to challenge that and thus, executing them is going to be a deterrent against any potential offender in the future.

In terms of statistics, it might seem that the world at large is abolitionist and there are exceptions who still have this practice. As of this date, 142 countries around the world have abolished capital punishment / have it in statute but do not use it in practice (of which 106 of them have do not have it in statute). However, significantly more than 50% of world’s population still live in jurisdictions which hold on to this medieval practice – the very fact that the list includes China, India, US, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh push the numbers up to 50% (adding the countries in the Arabian peninsula, Japan, etc. would take the numbers much higher). This makes the topic significant for discussion.

The concern regarding this topic is that a binary is established – that an academic or moral opposition to capital punishment is not considered, if you oppose the practice, you are pro-criminal. This binary was perfectly exploited by one of the former US presidents during a debate (re: 1992 US Presidential Election: George H.W. Bush vs Mike Dukakis). This binary is what we need to get beyond.

Note: This article is not a neutral evaluation of the ‘merits’ of both the sides, it reflects my opinion

The moral concern

Morals differ between people. Can criminals who committed the most heinous crimes be subjected to values that we agree upon as human rights? Under what circumstances can the right to life be suspended? Different value systems have different opinions on it; with places like Saudi Arabia executing people for homosexuality and places like the US reserving it for violent crimes / killing of police officers.

The most apparent and fundamental flaw of this form of punishment is the irreversible nature of the act. Apart from the fact that the there is a history of wrongful convictions and executions in the past (example: Derek Bentley, Timothy Evans in UK in the 1950s), societal values also change with time. Taking an example from France – Marie-Louise Giraud, the last woman to be guillotined in the country was convicted for performing abortions and executed in 1943. Before anyone argues that it was the period of Nazi occupation – France criminalised abortion in 1920 before revoking it in 1975 (she would have been 72 in 1975). While it was not a capital crime till the Nazi occupation, several members of the public were not opposed to it owing to religious beliefs. Today, even many of the so-called pro-life advocates do not support this to be a criminal offence, let alone being a capital crime. So, if this change of value occurs at a period of time coinciding with one’s own life – you have no chance of giving them back what they had, and normally the state issues an apology several decades later (other examples include blasphemy, ‘witchcraft’, etc.)

I believe that it is personally immoral to kill a person unless it is an act of self-defence. Imagine a psychopathic killer who holds a person hostage completely under their control and gives them a date of death. Even reading about it makes one’s blood run cold. But a death row prison is not much different if you think of it objectively, you are holding multiple people constantly under the fear that this moment could be their last. This intention to execute a person comes from the primary act of codifying vengeance and establishing a procedure to carry out revenge. Humans throughout history have been bloodthirsty and for large parts of human history, executions were public with large cheering crowds – often a spectacle than setting a deterrent (its effectiveness is addressed later).

While one could argue that people who have been convicted beyond doubt for murder or terrorism deserve it; the very risk that the cost of it is that you could potentially kill innocent people (and it has happened) makes you no different from a murderer yourself, regardless of what your intent was, every criminal has an ‘intent’. While a life without parole is also mentally agonising with a potential to traumatise a person forever, it provides a person at least a fighting chance at life if the conviction is overturned whereas the irreversible nature of capital punishment could have no justification.

The practical aspect

The case for the death penalty does prima facie seem simple – why should the taxpayers pay the living expenses of a criminal for the rest of their life, the society is better and safer without them, the family of the victims need a closure, etc. The arguments in favour are endless but the question is whether it is practical.

I would concede that the proponents of capital punishment understand the irreversible nature and as a result, the death row prisons are isolated and secure, there are multiple aspects to be established before a death row convict is executed running for several years. This adds to a huge element of cost, thereby collapsing the entire argument that capital punishment is less expensive. In US, it is estimated that a death sentence costs 18 times more than life sentence without parole (re: California). While this is a US example, the procedure is similar in almost every democracy in the world still using this practice (and thus, the costs are also going to be similar).

I often come across an argument that one needs to hasten the trials, reduce the number of appeals or some even suggest to summarily execute. But imagine, with all these extensive procedures, in the US, even in the 2000s – there have been cases of wrongful executions (re: Cameron Todd Willingham). Studies even estimate that roughly 4% ofprisoners on the death row in the US are potentially innocent (the exoneration rate at present is just under 2%). 4% might seem innocuous from a statistical perspective but these are people’s lives we are talking about and not misspent council funds.

To further the pro-capital punishment agenda, often a ‘pro-victim’ stance is played. It is perfectly reasonable for the victim and their families to be worried that the criminal might harm the surviving members. It is also valid for them to be outraged when the criminal is leading a normal life in the society notwithstanding their actions and thus, is perfectly reasonable to expect the institutions to act. However – does the act of executing the criminal provide a sense of closure? It perhaps might to some of them, everyone has different feelings, but we must note that a study found higher levels of mental satisfaction in cases of life without parole than capital punishment. One can question the study or the location as it is US based (link to the study here) – but people and human psychology is similar around the world. But what must be noted is that the very act of prosecution demanding capital punishment is rare – does that mean that the victims of gruesome crimes where the convict was not put to death do not have a sense of closure? Considering the trauma, they perhaps never will, but there is no evidence suggesting that death provides that, and this argument is primarily used only to further a pro-capital punishment agenda by the proponents than a concern for the victim.

The final argument is one of it being a deterrent. If you look at the map below (red and orange being the ones who still use the death penalty), it is evident as to where crimes are more as it is often a combination of socio-economic factors than the fear of punishment. Death sentence by itself is a combination of socio economic factors as Saudi Arabia, known for its public executions of locals and foreigners alike, is known for executing people from poorer African and Asian countries but not from wealthy European countries or the US. Studies also indicate that US states that repealed the death penalty (like New York) – there has been a reduction of murder rates as compared to states that use the penalty. Of course, correlation does not imply causation but that is sufficient to sabotage the proposition that death penalty improves order and crime.

Status of Capital Punishment by Country

A funny write-up on public executions by the 19^th century writer Charles Dickens – where he urged to stop the practice and instead make the execution private was because thieves and hooligans took the opportunity and displayed violent behaviour. Ironic that the very act that is supposed to act as a deterrent is the spot for crime scenes (refer here to read Dickens’ letter).

The legal concern

In most democracies, innocence is presumed until guilty and the judiciary is prudent, meaning, if in a group of five people, four of them are surely guilty and one is surely innocent but the prosecution is unable to establish who is guilty or innocent – it is not possible to sentence all five of them for ‘greater good’ and 80% accuracy.

Similarly, the systems that we have developed are flawed – ultimately, we are human, and flaws are inherent in any legal system. However, under this system, there is no possibility of subsequent correction and the moment we accept ‘collateral damage’, we are opening a can of worms. The moment there is mandate to judicially murder a person, it is inevitable that there is going to be a margin of error and one cannot be discussing margins of ‘error’ when it comes to killing an innocent person.

It is also possible that the judges do not have all the evidence at the time of sentencing and with the evidence available at the time, the conviction might seem reasonable. However, the history of posthumous exonerations has cited otherwise. It is true that every criminal has a story – for instance, Indonesia has the death penalty for drug trafficking and one of the death row prisoners at the moment is a 64-year-old woman from the UK. While she pleaded guilty, she claimed that she did it because her family was under threat from the ones who sent her on the mission had she refused. While it is possible that the story maybe fabricated by her counsel, but if future investigation into these claims reveal them to be true, you have carried no justice (re: Lindsay Sandiford).

A lot of executions are more to do with politics than being practical, it is often used by politicians to appear ‘tough’ and appeal to the bloodthirsty instincts, which people enjoyed two centuries ago, and see no reason why these cannot be exploited for political gains. Rise of politicians like Joko Widodo (Indonesia) and Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines) provide testimony to this exploitation.

Conclusion

It is evident that there is no reason to continue following a medieval practice – it is only a means to satisfy people’s temporary outrage and bloodthirsty instincts. With no visible benefit, the cost is huge. Life sentence without parole is established to be more effective in terms of handling violent criminals and I am sure everyone will agree that it is also a more humane solution. It is practical to demand a reform of systems within and address the root causes for reducing crime, rather than advocating a killing spree, which achieves nothing.

The simple English idiom to sum up this discussion on capital punishment is 'Don't throw the baby out with the bath water'.

Have a nice day,
Andy

Discrimination, denial and #BlackLivesMatter

The killing of a 46-year-old black man – George Floyd in Minneapolis has sparked protests across the United States and the world at large. It brings into question the police brutality, discrimination faced by people at an institutional level (direct / subtle) or in the society. The protests have sparked strong reactions from those who back the protests and otherwise – both on social media and in the real world.

While the incident that sparked the global movement took place in the United States, no society in the world is free from discriminatory behaviour today. A dominant group often consciously or sub-consciously engage in discriminatory acts; in this context, I would say that the soft power that the US asserts is being used well by other countries in the world – to make people conscious of their acts of discrimination. (how long would this soft power last is a question if the disaster of Trump being a two term president becomes a reality)

I would like to flag off right now that this article is not an ‘academic’ work citing research papers, but is going to focus more on observations and my personal opinions (I would try my best to substantiate sources for some of the contents in the article – refer to the footnotes).

Social media – hashtags

The rise of social media has enabled us all to have the feeling of being an activist. Initially it meant writing on social media on an issue you feel strongly about. Then came Twitter with its hashtags where desperation to make an issue ‘trending’ began. The same is visible in Black Lives Matter – where to express support, a random tweet with a hashtag or an Instagram post with a black background (and the hashtag) gives you the satisfaction that you have done something towards emancipating the oppressed but in reality, all it does is pollute the hashtag from people seeking genuine information or opinions on the subject.

I fell victim to this myself – where I made a ‘chain story’ on the Instagram page of this blog but eventually felt that if I claim writing to be a passion of mine – the least I can do is write on it.

Social media hashtags do not make one an activist – write on the issue along with the hashtag, read on the issue and in your own personal lives – eliminate your sub-conscious acts of discrimination and challenge those in your circles who engage in such acts.

The situation in the United States and around the world

If there is something that I acknowledge without engaging in modesty, is that I am politically aware – of the situation where I live and around the world at large. Across the world – people have been oppressed for centuries by means of race, class, ethnicity, caste, etc. These were sometimes at an institutional level and sometimes, practices that have existed in the society because of existing prejudices for centuries or authority from other sources (eg. Religion).

It is true that the murder of George Floyd is not the only case in the US where the police have acted brutally against a member of one group nor is US the only country which has this problem. However, considering the soft power that United States holds, an event in the US sparks reactions across the world and it is a good opportunity to use this moment to raise awareness on prejudice, institutional discrimination and recognising privileges that individuals have (including you and I). Where I live now had a similar case of custodial death of a black man (re: Adama Traoré – refer notes) which sparked massive protests then, protests after the acquittal of the police officers and now, after the George Floyd incident.

Talking of privileges, today the differences in wealth between white and black communities in the US is such that an average black household income is only 1/10^th of an average white household (refer article in notes). While one could defend it by saying that it so happens that it emerged that way based on individual abilities – which might have been true if opportunities available to every individual was fair.

However, equal rights are a recent concept (at best a century in Europe, less than that in US and other parts of the world) and wealth multiplies based on your existing assets. For centuries, a group of people in the society were more equal than the rest, owned property and have passed on this wealth (wealth often earned by exploiting the less equal people, on the basis of slavery, colonial subordination, ethnicity, etc.). Thus, at the time when every person got equal rights – the people who were ‘more equal’ still held the institutions, wealth and power leading to indirect suppression of the people. To this day, inheritances could explain almost 23% of the wealth gap between blacks and whites in the US (refer article in notes).

Talking of institutions, the difference in treatment is apparent, when a senior politician – Michael Gove, currently a minister UK could brag about having taken cocaine in the past. His supporters say that he was young, this happened long ago, and he has not committed any ‘crime’ since then. But for the same drug related offences, several years old with no subsequent criminal records to follow up, UK has had a history of deporting people to countries where the deportees have no contact (refer article in notes).

In the US, it is known that schools in black dominated neighbourhoods have less funding on average (refer article in notes). These poor schools leading to low academic attainment feeds baseless stereotypes on how blacks are unemployable and hence resort to crime. This stereotype is acted upon by other institutions such as the police, often leading to disproportionately higher detentions / wrongful indictments of black people than others

I could go on about institutional discrimination around the world – but that is precisely the objective of the protests and the voices that it is to raise awareness, at an individual level, an institutional level and ultimately to the state and the world at large.

Passive / sub-conscious acts of discrimination

We have created a binary when it comes to discrimination – that it is bad people discriminate and good people do not. As a result, any discussion on potential discriminatory behaviour becomes questioning the person’s moral character – leading to defensive and finally, being in complete denial of the whole situation.

It is often perceived that racists are those in Ku Klux Klan, members of neo Nazi parties openly spouting their ideas (or any supremacist organisations which I find across countries, like India, Malaysia, etc.). Thus, it is easy to overlook passive or subtle acts of discrimination which has a large impact.

I am going to make some generalisations here, people in general have cordial relations with based on social standing, and more often than not, colleagues are not discriminated against on this basis of colour / ethnicity at an individual level. But the dominant group tends to see these people as ‘exceptions to the rule’ rather than being the norm.

This manifests when people consciously / sub-consciously prefer people from the dominant group; be it to hire a person for a job, renting out property, etc. In France, a government study found that seven major companies, including Air France and Renault – were less likely to hire someone with an Arab sounding name even if they had all the required competences for the job (refer link in the notes – document in French). Similar studies have been conducted in US and the UK yielding similar results. The same could be said for renting property where minorities often have difficulty in finding a house for rent – in Europe, for instance, 15% own 70% of the property, meaning a select group have abnormal power to segregate communities (these inequalities are more in other parts of the world). In India, where such inequalities are more, often have caste / religion-based restrictions when it comes to renting out property.

Such passive acts are true in education as well, and in India – a study found that on average, teachers gave significantly lower grades to lower-caste students when they knew the names of students and the grades were higher when the identities of the students was kept anonymous. This behaviour was observed also among teachers from the so-called lower castes. (source: Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo – Nobel laureates for Economics in 2019)

The issue here is that any person who were making the decisions that provided data points for these studies are likely to refuse that they are racist / display discriminatory behaviour and would start justifying or normalising their actions (including myself). Typical examples of it include – this is banter, I chose what was appropriate and not out of prejudice, etc. It might be true to the extent that most of them were not intending to act with prejudice and might reject such ideas on the outside, but the society has conditioned us to act in a certain manner and these sub conscious acts are what requires urgent attention from everyone.

Diversionary tactics

Whenever these topics are brought up, we are always diverted. The first is the nonsensical ‘all lives matter’ argument. Please note, I fully agree with the statement, it is the use of the statement as an argument / the counter that I consider nonsensical. To start with, if you stand for a cause, it does not mean that you inevitably are against every other cause. While all lives indeed matter, when one set of lives are systemically discriminated against that their mere survival is a challenge; clearly, the statement all lives matter is not true – black lives clearly do not seem to matter in the United States (and discriminated communities in other countries around the world). To those who scream all lives matter, if you believe in this statement, it gives you all the more reason to march in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement or similar movements fighting for the rights of discriminated groups in your respective regions.

Black Lives Matter has been a largely peaceful protest across the world but nonetheless, in a freely assembled protest, it is impossible to monitor every participant – though the same argument does not hold for an institutionally organised police force or governments. However, instances of violence are not what the opponents of protest detest, rather seem like they were waiting for them to happen so that they can invalidate the protest, the injustices to discriminated communities, inter alia. ‘What about the looting, what about the damage to property’ is a standard argument to divert all your attention from the elephant in the room (note that all of these groups tend to glorify the French Revolution where all of these and more happened).

I was avoiding political references to the extent possible, but I cannot help but bring in, that in all these countries, the right wing and the conservative politicians are most resistant to any discussion on race or discrimination. I can even understand where these sentiments emerge, be it in US, France, UK, Germany, Italy, India – these groups talk of a ‘glorious past’ which they wish to bring back. In US, the great periods that Trump refers to are those where civil rights were denied, the founding days till the mid-19^th Century when slavery was legal (with the southern economy built on slavery); in France, UK or Italy – the days the far-right refer to are those glory days created by exploitation of colonies; in India, these glory days are when the upper classes had complete command over the lower classes and built their wealth by exploiting them, etc. One cannot invoke glory days and ignore the inglorious acts of those days – reject this classic diversionary tactic of the conservatives.

There are several other diversionary tactics that I have seen being employed – where the dominant class claim to be victims of affirmative action – though research in the US suggests that the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action were white women (refer notes section). The other tactics include whataboutery – a strange argument that any injustice against a black person (or the discriminated group in the region) is normal because of a similar incident against the powerful class. Yes, the injustice against any person matters, but the underlying point here is that the discrimination against one group is significantly higher than any other group – it exposes a systemic bias which needs to be exposed.

What should we do?

First, recognise your privilege if you are privileged. We all love to believe that we are self-made, and we made it through in life despite all our struggles. Sure, even the privileged have their own struggles – for instance, if you never had to worry about your next meal, your family not depending on supplemental income you could potentially bring, had access to school and higher education – with availability of credit to support your goals, you are privileged. There is nothing wrong in privileged but at the same time, there is no shame in acknowledging it either – it helps us recognise that we have had a head start on this race and provides us with sufficient empathy to provide similar privileges to people around us who lack them.

Next, recognise that consciously or sub-consciously, you might have indulged in discriminatory behaviour. Whenever a person points it out to you, listen to them completely – we often lack an understanding of their personal experience or their historical struggles; owing to which something that seems innocuous might have been profoundly offensive. Then introspect and if you identify any automated behaviour within yourself, work on correcting yourself.

Then, challenge the people around you when they indulge in discriminatory behaviour – both in terms of language or action. These should not be normalised as banter or a joke or ‘their thinking is in line with their times’. It is not easy, and you might not succeed, not immediately anyway. I have tried to confront and it never ended well, but that is not going to stop me, and at every given opportunity, I would challenge the people around me and if you wish to do the same, focus on what happens at home and your circles. If your circles are not that diverse, try to engage with more people to get a glimpse of a multitude of experiences (during better times, hopefully after a vaccine is invented – in any case, I do not expect anti-vaxxers to have gotten this far in this post of mine).

Finally, try to get experiences through arts, music or literature from other groups / cultures to understand their experiences. Being a reader, I did a check on my own lists, works I have read from writers of colour or discriminated background in their place of origin is very low; of course, I have read writer like James Baldwin on this very specific subject but not for mainstream fiction. I have not read a single work that has originated from Africa – these are aspects I need to improve on my own reading lists.

A recommendation if you have the time and courage – participate in protests and always raise your voice for a fairer society.

All these are applicable to me, and in all likelihood, to you the reader as well.

Conclusion

Discrimination is present since time immemorial, for multiple reasons. Are we better than before? Of course. In fact, we live in perhaps the most emancipated era in known human history. But is this enough? Certainly not, we are still far away from reaching the fair society that we all thrive to achieve. But the fight must go on, the death of George Floyd or anyone else who died in the face of discrimination should not be in vain – play to your strengths; if you like to write, make films, talk to people, or just listen, do all of those and bring awareness to everyone in your circles to counter discrimination across the world.

Have a nice day,
Andy

 

Notes:

1.       Mortd’Adama Traoré : une nouvelle contre-expertise met en cause les gendarmes (Le monde : Death of Adama Traoré – article in French)

2.       The power of protest and the legacy of George Floyd (The Economist: wealth disparity in the United States)

3.       The black-white wealth gap is unchanged after half a century (The Economist: wealth gaps from inheritance)

4.       Michael Gove admits to taking cocaine on 'several occasions' (The Guardian)

5.       Jamaica deportation: Home Office flight leaves UK despite court ruling (BBC: ‘many of those who were scheduled to be deported had committed non-violent, one-time drugs offences’ –David Lammy MP)

6.       NON-WHITE SCHOOL DISTRICTS GET $23 BILLION LESS FUNDING THAN WHITE ONES (Pacific Standard)

7.       Discrimination dans le recrutement des grandes entreprises (French Government study : Translation : Discrimination in the recruitment process of large companies)