Abolishing capital punishment: second mistake
M Mahtab Bashir
Punishment is supposed to be for the protection of society, and for the
reformation of the wrongdoer. It purports to protect society by
preventing the same criminals from repeating their crimes, and by acting
as a deterrent to other prospective criminals. Capital punishment is a
notorious failure in such respects. It does indeed remove removes the
particular culprit from the possibility of repeating his crime; but this
is of very small account in view of the fact that murder is seldom a
career of repeated acts but consists of single acts perpetrated by
different individuals. The man whom we remove from the scene, therefore,
is not the man who, if suffered to live, would have been likely to
endanger our safety.
As to the reformative character of punishment, it is scarcely necessary
to point out that capital punishment effectually removes all possibility
of this by cutting short the life of the offender and thus taking away
both his chance of reform and our opportunity of discharging the duty of
reforming him. Crime may be defined as an act that is punishable by the
law. It includes theft, robbery, dacoity, murder, kidnapping, smuggling,
narcotics trafficking, illegal transaction of foreign exchange and many
more.As prevention to other murderers, likewise, the death penalty has
proved a signal failure, as may be seen by comparing the criminal
statistics of those countries where the punishment is in force with
those of countries where it has been abolished. Nor is the reason of
this failure far to seek. Murders are nearly always committed in sudden
fits of passion or temporary insanity, when no consideration of reason
or self-interest can appeal to the doer. Further, such uncertainty
attends the consummation of the death sentence— due to the natural
hesitation and inclination to mercy of judge and jury, to the chances of
reprieve and commutation that this penalty is far less deterrent than
are those which, though less severe are more certain. Finally, we have
not answered the question whether there are not other and more effective
deterrents and there are such deterrents, in comparison with which
capital punishment is seen to be clumsy and ineffectual in the extreme.
History of crime is as old as man itself. Crime took its start in the
history of mankind when Qabeel (Kane) murdered his brother Habeel
(Able). Since then crime is being committed throughout the world,
varying in nature and magnitude. No check or foolproof method has so for
been evolved that could eliminate crimes from the society. However,
crime rates have been considerably suppressed by the efficient
performance of law enforcing agencies in many countries of the world.
Capital punishment is irrevocable, and the errors of justice cannot be
rectified. All possibility of reconsideration is taken away Innocent
persons have been hanged, and judge, jury and the whole legal machinery
involved have thereby been made privy to the very crime they sought to
punish. In view of the very uncertain and unequal character of our
merely human endevours to mete out justice, no proceedings of ours
should be of this irrevocable character. So complex and uncertain is the
process of sifting whereby finally a few individual are sorted out from
the mass and consigned to punishment that the selection seems largely
arbitrary and we find that the actual convicts are no worse, and some
perhaps even better than many of whom the hand of the law never reaches.
What principle of equity or reason can justify us in singling out for
our harshest treatment, by so haphazard a method, a few individuals who
for the most part manifest no particular reasons why they and they
alone, should be so treated?
In Pakistan the graph of capital crimes has always remained rising
despite the numerous measures taken by the government from time to time.
Aggression and violence has become the characteristic trait of
Pakistanis. People are very much impulsive easily exit able and
emotionally unstable. Ability of a person to escape punishment after
committing crime is being considered a status symbol and people often
boast about this ability.
Capital punishment sins deprive the culprits of his chances of
reformation. As a weaker brother, who has fallen through causes that are
inherent in our social structure, and for which we are all more or less
responsible, he should claim our care and protection. Our duty to
society is fulfilled by isolating the dangerous man for so long as he
may continue to be dangerous. As for deterrent action, this should be
compassed, not by fear, but by reformative and protective measures in
our social policy. The only way to destroy a criminal is by reforming
the man who is a criminal. To destroy his bodily life is nothing but a
stupid blunder. Man is extremely selfish by instinct, he is never scared
to transgress the limits and even shed the blood of his fellow beings to
satisfy his self. Angels were very right at the time of man’s creation
when they said, “Man will create violence and shed blood in the world”,
(having such powers and privileges). Man’s both present and past bears
testimony to this saying. When the physical life of a criminal is cut
short by this summary and unnatural means, we don not bring to an end
thereby the evil passions which prompted the crime.
According to a study undertaken by the National Institute of Psychology,
Islamabad a motivation to murder is the human instinct to possess woman,
wealth and land. This research reveals that 41.3 % of the murder cases
relate to woman and land disputes, 16% to intra family problems, 7.8% to
old enmities, 6% to dacoity, street fighting and gambling and other
petty problems. Comparatively thin margin between love and hate existing
there. While dealing with Socio-psychological causes of the crimes, the
researchers found that 22.7% of the crimes were committed under social
value pressure which included avenge to save the honour of the family or
wash away the blot on such acts, are lauded socially. Capital punishment
is tantamount to a repudiation of the divine nature of man. On what
principles of religion philosophy can we justify the policy of depriving
a human being like ourselves of all possibility of reform? If we profess
to revere a God of mercy and justice, and if we ourselves supplicate and
rely on that divine mercy and justice, how can we reconcile it with our
duty, as men created in the divine image to dismiss thus roughly a
fellow human being from our midst and send him into the presence of the
Deity whom we have outraged? Surely it is our duty and our privilege to
be the agents of divine justice and mercy and to exert to the utmost our
god-given powers in the endeavor to assist our fallen brother to his
feet.
There are various causes that lead to the occurrence of capital crimes
in our society. Poverty on one hand and strong desire to become
overnight rich on the other. Since the birth of Pakistan, the
influential people consisting of politicians, bureaucrats and big
businessmen amassed wealth by getting the evacuee property allotted to
them. Though route permits. Import licenses, expensive residential plots
either free or on nominal prices and by getting the loans amounting to
millions of rupees waived off from the government. It is well within the
power of existing governments to provide means whereby murderers, as
well as other criminals can be isolated in institutions where they can
be humanely treated as patients or people of unsound mind. And this must
be made part of a general campaign of educative and remedial treatment
of crime outside prison walls. This process of first carefully
manufacturing criminals and then killing them is an insult to our
intelligence and culture. We must stop making them, and if made, we must
reform them. Ruling classes have to do all this just to stay in power.
This race for power and money is still going on. These people have no
principle, no ideology and no party affiliation. They are ever ready to
change their strata of society. They have evolved their own ways and
means to get their share from this loot for which they arrange dacoities,
smuggle heroine, kidnap people for ransom and don not hesitate to kill
anybody coming their way.
The world is passing through a crucial stage and the newborn spirit of a
kindly intelligence is struggling for manifestation. A new law of human
life has been impressed upon us and is superceding the old ideas that
served us provisionally in the past. The essence of this law is mercy
and brotherhood. But humanity needs help and light in its endeavours to
readjust its practices to its new and broader principles, its finer
feelings. By abolishing capital punishment in those places where it is
un-brotherly, craven in spirit, ruthless and unintelligent. The new law
which we all recognize allows no scope for punishment at all, except in
the reformative sense. Some parents’ indifferent approach towards the
children’s out door activities is also adding to the problem. Part
played by the educational institutions to build up the character of the
students is not at all encouraging. Coverage given to violence and crime
by our print and electronic media has greatly encouraged the spread of
crime and violence. Though the moral lesson is always against the
convicts and criminals but its presentation is such an attractive that
the lesson becomes a subsidiary matter and goes down under the shadow.
All such institutions are commercial in nature and they are bound to
present things in this way because the supply of violence in pictures
has unfortunately become the demand of the public.
—The writer is a freelance political analyst. |
