Child Rape Does Not = Death

Finally I get to revisit the verdict on the case I outlined in a previous post here.

On Wednesday, in a split 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the crime of child rape. For those with a little free time, here is the decision in its entirety.

Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, stated that there is a "distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, even including child rape".

I know for a fact that there are several people whom I work with who will disagree vehemently with this decision. I cannot hold that against them. We see some of the worst of what human beings can do to one another. Of course it creates a jaded perspective. I, however, support the Supreme Court decision. My thoughts on the death penalty for violent homicides still remain conflicted. As a result, I find it easier than my colleagues to draw a line when it comes to child rape.

In pondering this decision, I came across this piece concerning Barrack Obama's support for the death penalty in cases of child rape where he stated:

I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution.

His opinion saddened me and I cannot quite put my finger on why. If forced to take a guess, I would say it is because it seems to me that by supporting the death penalty in cases such as these where the victim did not lose a life (no...I am not suggesting that the victim's life has not been irrevocably altered, but that there is still a life to be led) it makes us an equally violent society.

Violence against women and children exists each and every day. Putting someone to death for it does not deter any number of other men who choose to wield their power in heinous ways. Perhaps more of a focus on equality and respect would serve us better.

UPDATE:

Since LaPH challenged me to scrounge up some statistics on the death penalty, I managed to track down some very intriguing numbers. For anyone wanting a starting point to research the death penalty, I highly recommend the Death Penalty Information Center, which was where I began my search. The amount of time that could be spent tracking down valid statistics supporting the abolishment of the death penalty is mind-boggling, so you have to forgive me for taking a highly condensed approach.

(1) Statistics comparing crime rates in countries with/without the death penalty.

First let me point to the statistics between death penalty states and non-death penalty states here in the USA. The overall picture can be seen by following this link.

The summarized version of the statistics indicate that states without the death penalty have a consistently lower homicide rate:

When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states. The average of murder rates per 100,000 population in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5, whereas the average of murder rates among non-death penalty states was only 3.6. A look at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than their neighboring non-death penalty states.

That trend is mimicked in countries without the death penalty sentence as well. In fact, when one looks at countries with the death penalty, the USA is in some sketchy company. According to Amnesty International, "In 2006 91 percent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan and the USA."

By following the same Amnesty link above, one can find the following:

Reviewing the evidence on the relation between changes in the use of the death penalty and crime rates, the study conducted for the United Nations cited above stated: "The fact that all the evidence continues to point in the same direction is persuasive a priori evidence that countries need not fear sudden and serious changes in the curve of crime if they reduce their reliance upon the death penalty".

Recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, for example, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further. In 2003, 27 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.73 per 100,000 population, 44 per cent lower than in 1975 and the lowest rate in three decades. Although this increased to 2.0 in 2005, it remains over one-third lower than when the death penalty was abolished.

(2) The death penalty as a means of deterrence.

From the Death Penalty Information Center:

A survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association showed that the overwhelming majority did not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect.

And again from Amnesty International:

Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: "... it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."

Now, of course the research cited above comes from sources that clearly are against the death penalty. However, I am not one so cynical to think that the numbers have been doctored to support the cause. Nothing I have ever seen seems to suggest that, as it is applied now at the very least, the death penalty is a remotely successful method of punishment or deterrence. At minimum, it provides society with a moment of emotional release...a means of dealing with extreme violence. I do not find that to be a sufficient reason.