Only one kind of killing is worse than murder, and that is the state killing someone as punishment either for murder or some lesser crime. The state has no moral authority to kill anyone and should not have a legal one either in a civilised society.
New Zealand used “capital punishment” from 1840 until 1957, executing 83 men and one woman. For 30 years afterwards, politicians and others regularly and quite seriously called for its return, but for the last 20 years, it has, thank goodness, been right off the political agenda. A Colmar Brunton poll on One News in 2004 found just 28 per cent of New Zealanders “wanted death as a sentencing option,” with 67 per cent opposed. Despite One News trumpeting that as “New Zealanders demanding the return of hanging,” it was actually the lowest support capital punishment had ever received in a New Zealand poll, and among the lowest in any poll anywhere in the world. That should have been the end of it.
However, not so. David Farrar yesterday reported details of the latest UMR Mood of the Nation poll (not online yet). As summarised by David, the poll’s social issues section found 42 per cent support for the death penalty, substantially higher than the 28 per cent in the Colmar Brunton poll four years ago. The only consolation was that UMR compared that 42 per cent with a similar American poll, which showed 66 per cent support for the death penalty there. Given the bloodlust for executions of so many Americans, the only wonder was that the US figure was so low.
The UMR poll is probably not as grim as first seemed. Polling results can vary widely depending on the specifics of the question. I asked David for the actual question put by UMR and it was this: “Next, I’m going to read you a list of issues. Regardless of whether or not you think it should be legal, for each one, please tell me whether you personally believe that in general it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. How about the death penalty?” And 42 per cent said it was morally acceptable. While some might say the difference is only semantic, it was quite a different question than Colmar Brunton’s one in 2004.
It is entirely possible that some people might oppose reinstating capital punishment while holding it to be morally acceptable. Canterbury University criminologist, Associate Professor Greg Newbold, who has written extensively on the subject, put it this way to me yesterday: “Morally acceptable isn’t the same as supporting reintroduction. I think it’s morally acceptable in some cases, but I oppose it on other grounds.”
Fortunately, there is zero chance of New Zealand reinstating capital punishment. The very idea is repugnant to almost all our politicians. But this being election year, polls like the UMR one could very well give some of the more extreme pressure groups or candidates the idea to make it an election issue, and the media, who are now as often in the sewer as in the gutter, would give them the platform. It would very likely be a nasty experience.
The last time capital punishment was an election issue was in 1987. It was the third year in a row of social, economic and political turmoil in New Zealand. Labour’s David Lange was prime minister. His government had turned the country upside down, not just with the Rogernomics economic reforms, but also social and political ones like the Homosexual Law Reform Act and the anti-nuclear policy. The social changes angered and dismayed many of the elderly and many conservative Christians, who allied themselves with the National opposition, then led by Jim Bolger. In the months leading to the election campaign, there were some particularly ghastly murders. This led to demands to bring back hanging. National picked up on this. It promised a referendum on reinstating capital punishment. On one particularly memorable day, there was a big, noisy march along Queen St in Auckland, its leaders propelling a gallows and rope as they walked. Several National MPs took part in this ugly spectacle. In the event, National was thumped at the ballot box, losing three more seats to Labour, which was returned with a bigger share of the vote than when Lange beat Rob Muldoon in 1984. It was the last time any party made capital punishment an election issue.
Most countries have abolished capital punishment, including all of Europe, Australia, Canada and much of Latin America. According to Amnesty International, 133 countries have abolished it in either law or in practice, leaving just 59 with it. Many of those use it rarely. China, Iran, Iraq, the United States, Pakistan and Sudan account for 90 percent of all the state-sanctioned executions that still take place. There is a strong international campaign to have it abolished everywhere. A number of American states have ceased executions, having realised the appallingly high risk of killing innocent people. In December, the United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution that called for “a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.” It was non-binding to overcome objections from states that wanted dogmatically to retain executions, being passed by 104 votes to 54, with 29 abstentions. It scarcely needs saying how New Zealand voted.
Executions are horrible. Their cold, calculating nature makes them even more chilling and deplorable than a murder committed in the heat of the moment. The fact they are acts of politically ordained killing is all the more evil. The state exists to protect its citizens, not to kill them, not any of them, not even the most reviled of them. Jails exist to protect society from those who are too dangerous to be free. In every country which has capital punishment, executions are ordained by politicians (or the dictators, emperors, warlords, religious figures and royalty who double as politicians in those authoritarian regimes that deny their citizens the right to vote). In some democracies, politicians nakedly support capital punishment to garner votes. George W Bush became governor of Texas in 1994 promising more executions than his opponent, and proceeded to turn the Lone Star State into America’s most prolific judicial killing machine, with a record 194 prisoners being executed during his reign.
In New Zealand, whether a condemned murderer lived or died came to depend on which party was in power. Labour took office for the first time in 1935, pledged to abolish hanging, which it did. But in 1949, National campaigned on a promise to restore it, and duly executed eight convicted murderers during the next eight years. There is still debate over whether the last of them, the elderly Walter Bolton, in 1957, was guilty of the poisoning of his wife Beatrice by arsenic, which arguably got into their farm water supply from being used in sheep dip. Two condemned men lived in New Zealand thanks directly to a change of government. Eric Mareo, an Australian musician, was convicted of poisoning his wife in September 1935 and was saved from the gallows by the incoming Labour government two months later. Sicilian Angelo Antonio La Mattina was in custody on election day in 1957 for clubbing a fellow Italian to death with a bottle in a Wellington nightclub two months earlier. His trial ended immediately after the election and he was sentenced to hang, being saved only by Labour’s victory and its renewed halt to executions.
National campaigned in 1960 on restoring the noose. It won. But Walter Bolton remained the last man hanged in this country, because a young Rob Muldoon and several other rebel National MPs crossed the floor and voted with Labour when National introduced the Crimes Bill to bring it back. Never again. But please. Never again as an election issue, either.
50 Comments
February 5, 2008 at 7:27 am
Poneke, that is of course your opinion, you write it as if “Only one kind of killing is worse than murder, and that is the state killing someone as punishment either for murder or some lesser crime.” is an objective fact, it isn’t.
There are two things you can do with an enemy, you can kill him, or you can make him your friend.
That’s a simple principle, if you don’t address the problem, he’ll just keep coming back kicking you in the balls till it kills you.
Offer criminals the choice, the rate of reform will soar. those who can’t reform can either in principle spend the rest of their lives in prison or be executed, at $50,000/year imprisonment isn’t cheap, though I suppose if the convicts family is prepared to pay it they should have the option.
I’m not advocating execution as a result of some blood lust, a revenge on people to be despised, but as a solution to the insane situation we have at the moment which is practically a revolving door policy to incarceration, or a cripplingly expensive detention system should we ever stop the spinning door.
Call it a numbers approach.
February 5, 2008 at 8:18 am
Call it a numbers approach.
I was thinking more “the sociopath’s approach”.
February 5, 2008 at 8:18 am
Execution as a cost-saving measure certainly doesn’t seem to work in the US. To make sure the condemned is innocent they have to be given an extensive appeals process to prevent the state from accidentally killing an innocent person; the legal cost of this dwarfs the cost of simply throwing someone in prison for life with no parole.
I don’t have any philosophical opposition to capital punishment – I just can’t see us ever having a justice system in which it’s ethical or practical.
February 5, 2008 at 9:21 am
“I was thinking more “the sociopath’s approach””
Then you don’t know what a sociopath is, or else you’re just someone who likes making personal attacks on people you disagree with, perhaps you’re the sociopath?
Danyl, assuming the money spent on the trials is used effectively (ha) to determine guilt, that means that a lot of money is being spent to determine the guilt to a level that is considered unnessessary if someone is being sentenced to life imprisonment. So it’s OK to confine far more innocent people for life that execute very few innocent?
As it is I’m talking about executing only people who cannot be reformed, even if their crimes are relatively minor, that means several trials for several offences with several convictions.
Even someone committing a relatively heinous crime wouldn’t be heading to the chair if reforming them was possible.
February 5, 2008 at 9:24 am
It’s probably a good idea to periodically debate the subject, even if to simply show that the majority of New Zealanders abhor the idea of state sanctioned murder.
I hope state anctioned murder never returns, because I would feel obliged to spend a huge amount of time protesting about such a law, and actively campaigning for abolition …. and I otherwise have many better things to do with my time.
Such a law has the real potential to divide New Zealand in a way that has not been seen since the 1981 Springbok tour. Civil disobedience would be a certainty. Criminal disobedience would be a strong likelihood, just as protesters in 1981 willingly chose to accept the consequences of disobeying laws that they believed were morally unacceptable.
February 5, 2008 at 9:44 am
Sociopath – (the relevant bit only) “a person who lacks a social conscience”.
You might not agree with Russell, but I can’t see how you can claim that he doesn’t understand what the word means.
“As it is I’m talking about executing only people who cannot be reformed”
Your other comments seem to suggest this includes recidivist shoplifters. Putting that aside, can you seriously tell me that the countries that are executing people are also offering them the best opportunities for reform that we have? Even if your claim is simply about how murdering people should be done (rather than is actually done), it isn’t plausible to claim that we can’t reform a 30 year old by offering them 30 years of best practice treatment (whatever that entails). So we either simply end up killing only old criminals, or you to have to lower the standard – we kill everyone if we can only reform 90% of them say.
Already it seems pretty cruel and inhumane, and there hasn’t even been discussion of the possibility of wrongly executing someone.
February 5, 2008 at 10:08 am
I think we should offer people the choice – let those who support capital punishment nominate the crimes to which it should apply. When someone is convicted of a crime that that they have nominated as capital, draw another death penalty supporter at random to be their executioner. That way everyone is happy except those who unconditionally oppose the death penalty and believe in imposing their beliefs on others.
I think the above would be very revealing – both in the crimes nominated and those who suddenly change their mind when asked to execute someone. I actually wonder how many would nominate “failure to execute” as a capital offence.
February 5, 2008 at 10:12 am
“You might not agree with Russell, but I can’t see how you can claim that he doesn’t understand what the word means.”
You’re better than that BeShakey, did you miss the “or”?
You conclude that Russell is “someone who likes making personal attacks on people (he) disagrees with”? Fair enough.
I don’t know where you got “30 years of best practice treatment” from, if it takes 30 years to reform someone that does sound like a waste of effort.
You people seem to over look what a recidivist offender is, it’s a person who goes out and hurts people through their illegal acts, again and again and again. They don’t care about their victims, they have no interest in not creating more victims in the future. To you this is acceptable you do nothing to stop this victimisation other than protect the perpetrator, putting his welfare above that of his/her future victims, or alternatively creating more victims in the form of the people who are forced to pay for his/her incarseration, because you aren’t brave enough to face up to the realities of dealing with such people.
Thank you for introducing the word “sociopath” into the discussion Russell because those are the people who need to be dealt with one way or another, I’m arguing that they should be dealt with with finality, you’re arguing that allowing them to create future victims is OK.
Don’t judge them in the terms that you would people who do have a social conscience, if you do they certainly won’t reciprocate, seeing your benevolence as a weakness to be exploited.
February 5, 2008 at 10:19 am
Moz: “When someone is convicted of a crime that that they have nominated as capital”
How about: When someone is a victim of a crime that that they have nominated as capital..?
February 5, 2008 at 10:20 am
You people seem to over look what a recidivist offender is, it’s a person who goes out and hurts people through their illegal acts, again and again and again. They don’t care about their victims, they have no interest in not creating more victims in the future… you aren’t brave enough to face up to the realities of dealing with such people.
Not at all. You put them in jail. For as long as is necessary. In fact, it is what we already do in New Zealand. It is never necessary to kill anybody, let alone to kill people because it costs too much to keep them in jail, which is your suggestion.
Jails exist to protect society from the very small number of people who are too dangerous to live among the rest of us. The money spent keeping society safe from those people is a very good use of my taxes.
February 5, 2008 at 10:31 am
“You’re better than that BeShakey, did you miss the “or”?” – Yes, still missing it, what or?
“You conclude that Russell…”, that wasn’t my post, so I assume your not directing that comment at me.
“I don’t know where you got “30 years of best practice treatment” from, if it takes 30 years to reform someone that does sound like a waste of effort.”
I understood the claim to be that we should (or at least could) execute people who can’t be reformed. My claim was that for an offender who is 30 we could have 30 years of treatment (making them only 60, less than normal life expectancy, but that is often the case with people who end up in jail, extending the timeframe would only make my argument stronger). The best treatment bit is simply that if we are going to execute them if they don’t reform I would have thought we would be morally obliged to offer them opportunitys to reform, in fact the best opporunitys we could reasonably offer them.
Your new claim seems to be that if people can be reformed, but it would take a lot of effort, we should kill them rather than make the effort. Thats a different claim to your first one, and I suspect one that would have even less support than the first claim.
“You people seem to over look what a recidivist offender…”
I won’t quote the whole paragraph because it’s pretty long. Firstly, I understand what a recidivist offender is, my point was that there seems to be a difference between a recidivist shoplifter and a recidivist rapist. Your claim was that we should execute both, it seems to me thats clearly over the top in the shoplifter case. Secondly, your claim that I think recidivist offending is OK is pretty offensive. The fact I don’t think it is OK to murder criminals doesn’t mean I endorse their crimes. If you see the world as divided between people who support the death penalty and people who support crime then you have completely lost perspective (and a grip on reality).
In terms of sociopaths – again, I think you’ve missed the point. I’m not opposed to life sentences (while I can’t speak for Russell on that, nothing he said justified you in concluding that he was opposed to them either). If it is impossible to reform someone I don’t have a problem with a life sentence (eg. preventative detention). You again seem to fail to recognise that someone who opposes the death penalty could also be opposed to the crimes that you think justify it.
February 5, 2008 at 10:32 am
In that case the cost of their confinement should be less than the value we place in their life.
How much are we prepared to spend on medical treatment, straightening roads work place safety to save a life?
If we’re spending more keeping someone in prison for 30 years than we are prepared to pay saving another persons life we are placing a higher value on the life of the criminal than the non-criminal.
February 5, 2008 at 10:37 am
It’s interesting that some people like to focus on the costs of the death penalty, as well as the morality of it, without looking at the other side of the equation.
Take Graham Burton as an example. He committed murder in 1992 but was released on parole so he could murder again. Now the family of one his victims has been asked to repay about $19,000 in legal aid, while taxpayers will have to pay for Burton’s new leg, for which a price of $40,000 has been quoted. But the biggest cost has been to the friends and families of those whom Burton has harmed/murdered. These costs, which cannot be expressed in $$$, would not have been incurred had Mr Burton been given the ultimate punishment, or if he had remained in prison.
Cases like Burton will always generate a fair amount of debate due to the inadequacies of the current system. When someone is executed, they can never re-offend. I suspect that is seldom taken into account when this debate takes place. If Burton had been executed after his first murder, the benefits to the wider community would have been incalculable. (Despite his convictions for murder, Burton will probably be eligble for parole one day, incurring more financial and emotional costs for all concerned.) I’m not saying he should have been executed after his first murder, just that it is important to focus on the benefits as well as the costs. And there are indeed significant benefits.
February 5, 2008 at 10:41 am
beshakey, the “or” is obvious.
Throughout the rest of your comment you misrepresent what I actually said, if you’re interested in me addressing your comments get it right.
February 5, 2008 at 10:41 am
Poneke,
You wrote: “You put them [recidivists] in jail. For as long as is necessary. In fact, it is what we already do in New Zealand”.
Really, so how come we have recidivist offenders in the first place? By definition, we must be releasing them so they can commit the same (or worse) crimes again. Therefore, we are not keeping them in prsion for long enough.
February 5, 2008 at 11:43 am
Andrew W wrote: “There are two things you can do with an enemy, you can kill him, or you can make him your friend.”
Really?
I’ve got a few enemies. Wouldn’t dream of doing either with them. Same goes for most people, I think.
February 5, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Rob, It means if you don’t deal with your problems they will deal with you.
I’m happy to look at other low cost alternatives to dealing with recidivist offenders that won’t reform, sending them to Australia, as long as they can’t return, might be an option except that it would be a rather poor deterant, in fact on present form it would probably be a huge incentive to commit crime.
Rob, do any of your enemies rape, commit violent assaults or murder you or your family? And then do the same the following week? And the week after that?
February 5, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Andrew – it seems you either can’t express your views clearly, or choose to attack someone who calls you up on them rather than debating the issues.
Given the comments you made to Rob I suspect it’s that your ideas are so incoherent and and objectionable to the vast majority of people that it’s tough to stand behind them.
Feel free to point out any place I misinterpreted your views with my comments. I’m more than happy to debate the issues with you.
February 5, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Danyl, assuming the money spent on the trials is used effectively (ha) to determine guilt, that means that a lot of money is being spent to determine the guilt to a level that is considered unnessessary if someone is being sentenced to life imprisonment. So it’s OK to confine far more innocent people for life that execute very few innocent?
Of course it is – because if you send someone innocent to prison for life they can be subsequently exonerated by the discovery of new evidence, changes in technology ect and then be freed. You can’t bring someone back from the dead.
You seem very focused on what you’d like to see done to people like Graeme Burton – I find its helpful to take into account what kind of system you’d want to be subject to if you were mistakenly arrested and charged with murder.
Reading about cases like the West Memphis Three:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_3
also helps put things in perspective.
February 5, 2008 at 1:46 pm
beshakey, I’ve reread the thread and can’t find the incoherent comments of mine you refer to, possibly they are only incoherent to you.
One thing you could do to help your understanding of the issue is to look up the word “murder” you have been using it incorrectly.
Danyl, as I pointed out earlier, I’m not suggesting capital punishment as a method for dealing with first time offenders, I am only talking about the death penalty for people who are very likely to re-offend in future given the chance, AND who are aware that if caught they face the death penalty. I am all infavour of looking at new methods to reform criminals, reforming is easily the best option IF the offender allows that to be an option, the present re-offending rate is ridiculous.
“You can’t bring someone back from the dead.”
Nor can you return to them the years they lost in prison.
The “we can’t be sure so we better not execute them” is an excuse, not a reason, people like Burton and Bell committed the crimes they were convicted of, you know it, I know it, every NZer knows it.
Does your reluctance to see the death penalty apply to them?
People who object to the death penalty do so for emotional rather than rational reasons, killing people, or sharing in the responsibility for killing people, just isn’t something they are prepared to accept, that’s a reflection on their own character.
Obviously most NZers aren’t going to change their position without some other factor/s changing dramatically.
Confining hundreds of people at a cost of many millions a year is a price we as a fairly wealthy nation can afford, but it’s an emotional not a rational decision, and I doubt most people realise how high the cost is.
February 5, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Andrew – the offer to debate the issues is still open. Feel free to point to any place where I’ve misinterpreted your argument.
You suggest that people who oppose the death penalty do so for emotional rather than rational grounds. One obvious example of a rational reason to oppose the death penalty is the belief that killing someone is bad and should be avoided where possible. That is a rational reason to oppose the death penalty regardless of whether people also have emotional reasons for believing it (I’m using rational in the proper sense of the word, your fond of telling people to look things up in dictionarys so I’m sure you can do so if you don’t know what I’m talking about).
You also claim that it would be cheaper to execute people rather than keep them in jail. That isn’t the experience of the US. You could of course hold up the other countries that use the death penalty to show that it can be done cheaper. But I don’t think many people are going to think it’s plausible to hold up China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan as ideal models for a criminal justice system.
As I said, I’m happy to debate the issues with you, if your actually willing to do that.
February 5, 2008 at 2:03 pm
beshakey, I am debating the issue, with anyone who raises points worth addressing.
February 5, 2008 at 2:13 pm
No Andrew, your refusing to engage in debate.
I’ve raised a number of points. I’ve asked for you to point to any place where I’ve misinterprested your position. I’ve made points in response to your claims.
Your refusal to debate the issues says far more about the defensibility of your position (or your ability to provide an intellectual defence of it) than any other point you could make.
February 5, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Well I’m stumped beshakey, I still can’t find the points you’ve raised that are so important, possibly you could rephrase them, or someone else more coherent than you, but still understands you, could take them up and present them in an intelligible form.
February 5, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Beshakey’s points are perfectly clear, Andrew, as are yours. If all you want is the last word, consider you have just said it.
February 5, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Simply go back and read some of the posts I made, pick and choose a few of the arguments presented, and provide the intelligent, coherent rebuttal that I’m sure your storing up for the fun of it rather than debating.
If you are too lazy for that, here are a couple of points you could try replying to:
a) You claim that executing criminals would be a cost saving measure. That isn’t the experience of the United States. Other countries that have managed to execute criminals have done so by removing the checks and balances.
b) You claim that the death penalty should be used for recidivist offenders. Does this include a recidivist shoplifter? If not why not, and where do you draw the line? If so do you want to add anything to suggest that it’s reasonable to execute someone for shoplifting repeatedly?
That’s two, there were more points obviously.
I’m happy to debate the issues, but given you seem to prefer attacking people rather than their comments I can’t see that happening.
February 5, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Well I guess I’ve been told off, though I don’t agree that beshakey has made any important point, I’ll address them.
“your claim that I think recidivist offending is OK is pretty offensive.”
Never said that, if you take what I said in context it was that by not dealing with recidivist so they can’t continue to create victims we allow them to create those victims, we allow them to reoffend by giving them the option when we know most will.
“countries that are executing people are also offering them the best opportunities for reform that we have?”
It’s an idiot implication that our options are limited by what other countries do.
“it seems to me thats clearly over the top in the shoplifter case”
Shop lifters I’m sure can reform, given the incentive, if one can’t be reformed how many times would someone need to shoplift in your book before they’re stopped? 10, 1000, 100000? Is your ’solution’ to just keep putting them back in prison and lengthening the sentence so they spend half their lives in prison, just for shoplifting?
“You also claim that it would be cheaper to execute people rather than keep them in jail. That isn’t the experience of the US. You could of course hold up the other countries that use the death penalty to show that it can be done cheaper. But I don’t think many people are going to think it’s plausible to hold up China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan as ideal models for a criminal justice system.”
Same rebuttle as above, our options are not limited by those chosen by other countries, how the hell could you imagine that they are?
February 5, 2008 at 2:54 pm
how many times would someone need to shoplift in your book before they’re stopped? 10, 1000, 100000? Is your ’solution’ to just keep putting them back in prison and lengthening the sentence so they spend half their lives in prison, just for shoplifting?
Just so I understand this with terrifying clarity, you are saying that repeat shoplifters should be executed rather than jailed for half their lives, correct? So after how many shoplifting convictions would you have them executed? An exact number, please. No further evading the issue.
February 5, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I’d take a break to read The Oresteia — with particularly close attention paid to The Eumenides– and ask yourselves why Aeschylus came to the conclusion that justice and the rule of law is preferable to vengeance.
Those dead (off-)white males knew a thing or two.
Here’s my objection to the death penalty: I can’t reconcile the idea that we assert the value of human life or the institutions of a civil society by state-sanctioned murder. At least not without the intellectual equivalent of the kind of contortions seldom seen outside circuses or live sex shows. And I used the m-word deliberately — as I believe that’s what you call the pre-meditated, willful extinction of a human life
February 5, 2008 at 3:24 pm
“…if you take what I said in context it was that by not dealing with recidivist so they can’t continue to create victims we allow them to create those victims, we allow them to reoffend by giving them the option when we know most will.”
I responded to this point when you made it initially, but I’ll repeat the essence of the reply. I’m not opposing dealing with recidivist offenders, I’m simply opposing one particular way of dealing with them (the death penalty).
“It’s an idiot implication that our options are limited by what other countries do.”
Depends on whether you are endorsing how their criminal systems work or not. If you read the following sentence I replied on the assumption that you weren’t endorsing their systems. The point then is whether we can reform an offender – I argued that there would be few cases where we couldn’t given time and best practice measures.
“Is your ’solution’ to just keep putting them back in prison and lengthening the sentence so they spend half their lives in prison, just for shoplifting?”
Worst case scenario – yes. I don’t find it reasonable to execute someone for shoplifting. If it was ever to be acceptable I think it has to be for serious offending (not that shoplifting doesn’t hurt people, just that it’s on a whole different scale to rape/murder).
“[re: the costs of executions v. life imprisonment] our options are not limited by those chosen by other countries, how the hell could you imagine that they are?”
Of course they aren’t limited in that way. But neither is the real world experiences of people who have the death penalty irrelevant. My point was that it isn’t always the case that execution is cheaper than life in prison (hence the US example). Other countries have less issues, but they have saved money by getting rid of the checks and balances. My point was that you either have to justify getting rid of checks and balances, or say what NZ could do differently to the other countries that have the death penalty, to save money.
February 5, 2008 at 3:48 pm
AndrewW, my point is that we should only execute people who think they should be executed and have effectively consented to their execution by committing a crime that they want to see people executed for. Letting the victim nominate the punishment is fraught for many reasons that I hope are obvious to you.
I deliberately leave open the distinction between “convicted of” and “has committed”.
February 5, 2008 at 4:01 pm
“So after how many shoplifting convictions would you have them executed? An exact number, please.”
If someone commits murder how many years should they get? An exact number, please.
Faced with the death penalty, who is going to keep on offending despite efforts to reform them?
Undoubtably in such a situation as shoplifting a plee of insanity would be justifiably successful.
Going back to my original point: “There are two things you can do with an enemy, you can kill him, or you can make him your friend.”
Our current justice system doesn’t work because it does neither, it has the faults of a product of committee decision making, it neither makes serious efforts, with serious incentives for people to try to reform themselves and support them in their efforts to do so, nor does it offer punishments that deter too many criminally minded people in the first place.
Bring in the death penalty for recidivist offenders and people, bother the criminals and the wider community, would get serious about reforming offenders. It’s not just the criminals that need to be made to take crime and the suffering of victims seriously.
February 5, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Moz, if you think that’s sensible presumably you think it makes sense to work that system for all other penalties.
February 5, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Thank you for showing I am wasting my time trying to get a straight answer from you, Andrew. Have a nice day.
February 5, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Moz – I can see a few problems with that approach. What if everyone simply suggests crimes they don’t think they’ll be convicted of (arguably this already happens with calls for tougher sentences)?. What if we are both convicted of identical crimes but you think execution is an appropriate response and I don’t (ie identical crimes won’t get the same punishment)? How does this proposal tie in with the idea that sentences should reduce the crime rate (or are you rejecting that)? What if I at 18 think nothing should result in a death sentence, but at 50 think everything should?
Obviously there would be some practical issues as well – presumably we’d need some way of finding out what peoples views are and a record of what they were. But these seem minor compared to the issues above.
February 5, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Sorry you feel that way Poneke, I can’t imagine you asking someone who advocates shorter prison sentences, or longer prison sentences, or who advocates changing the present system, any present system, on a whole range of issues to give you an exact empirical value on that change.
February 5, 2008 at 4:14 pm
“Faced with the death penalty, who is going to keep on offending despite efforts to reform them?”
A lot, if the example set by the USA is anything to go by.
“Undoubtably in such a situation as shoplifting a plee of insanity would be justifiably successful.”
In that case we would end up with a sentence of the death penalty but never give it. (According to you) you must be crazy to commit such a large number of offences that you deserve the death penalty, so your not guilty by reason of insanity. Would the same apply for more serious crimes, eg murder?
“Bring in the death penalty for recidivist offenders and people, bother the criminals and the wider community, would get serious about reforming offenders. ”
I fail to see how bringing in the death penalty would force the community to focus more on reforming offenders. Wouldn’t it make sense to say ‘your sentenced to x years in jail and your getting out then reformed or not’. Then everyone would be desperate to get them reformed because otherwise an unreformed offender will be freed. (I’m not advocating this, just suggesting this uses the same reasoning as your argument above, and would be more effective).
Andrew – I think the point was that you stated that if someone shoplifted enough times then they should be executed. Poneke is asking how many times is ‘enough’.
I think your response to Poneke might have been a bit clearer if you’d said that it would depend on the seriousness of the offences etc etc (I’m not sure what else the factors would be, but presumably you do since you’re advocating the position).
February 5, 2008 at 4:32 pm
“A lot, if the example set by the USA is anything to go by.”
The death penalty in the US is implemented as a punishment for serious crimes, not as a deterant for repeat offenders.
At the moment our prisons act as boarding schools where inmates learn how to be better at crime, ultimately they themselves need to want to reform before they will, I’ve suggested an incentive, I could offer others that would also be seen as distasteful by most of the general public.
Do you see the present high reoffending rate as OK? Whay options do you see to change it?
February 5, 2008 at 4:41 pm
“The death penalty in the US is implemented as a punishment for serious crimes, not as a deterant for repeat offenders.”
I’d suggest it’s both (plus other things eg an enactment of religious principles).
“I could offer others that would also be seen as distasteful by most of the general public.”
It concerns me a bit that the options you’ve suggested are the more palatable ones.
“Do you see the present high reoffending rate as OK? Whay options do you see to change it?”
To your first question no. To your second: critically I’d like to avoid the issue. Greater focus on the causes of crime and addressing them. Greater focus on proven interventions that reduce the likelihood of offending. There are some pretty simple, cheap, and effective measures that could be taken. Unfortunatly I suspect there will always be offenders (and reoffenders) so to address them: more focus on rehabilitation in prisons (locking someone away, treating them like an animal, then releasing them into the community with fingers crossed is a recipe for disaster). More support for people once they leave jail. Generally a greater focus on using prisons to rehabilitate rather than punish (the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but I want the focus to be on the former rather than the latter). I agree with your point that offenders have to want to change, but I think there are effective ways of pushing them towards wanting to change, rather than sitting back and waiting for it to happen.
February 5, 2008 at 5:24 pm
“It concerns me a bit that the options you’ve suggested are the more palatable ones.”
Again that’s not what I said.
Your suggested solution re my second question, I see as a tail chasing exercise, we just keep going round and round with the same ideas, never getting anywhere.
To me a distinct seperation between the carrot and stick is needed, beating the convict with one hand (a stiff prison term, harsh conditions) while at the same time encouraging him with kind words (efforts to reform) is only screwing them up more.
I’m sure reforming convicts can be improved with MUCH better detention facilities, more use of home detention etc, but only if we’re brave enough to be really tough if they’re not interested, otherwise the temptation of crime has even less of a down side.
February 5, 2008 at 5:34 pm
“Again that’s not what I said.”
That’s how I interpreted “I could offer others that would also be seen as distasteful by most of the general public.” It isn’t central to the discussion, but I struggle to see how using the word ‘palatable’ rather than ‘distasteful’ lost the meaning of your statement (or how it was lost any other way).
“beating the convict with one hand (a stiff prison term, harsh conditions) while at the same time encouraging him with kind words (efforts to reform) is only screwing them up more.”
That is a long way from what I suggested, so I guess we can agree on that much.
“…but only if we’re brave enough to be really tough if they’re not interested, otherwise the temptation of crime has even less of a down side.”
I don’t have a problem with taking steps to deter crime. As I’ve suggested earlier, I don’t believe the death penalty is particularly effective as a deterrent.
February 5, 2008 at 5:44 pm
It’s not a question of “distasteful” vs not “palatable” but of “also” vs “more”
I was thinking of c0rporal punishment.
“That is a long way from what I suggested, so I guess we can agree on that much.”
Arggg! that’s what we’re doing now!
If the death penalty doesn’t deter, nothing will.
February 5, 2008 at 6:02 pm
“Arggg! that’s what we’re doing now!”
It might be what we’re doing now, but you asked me for positive suggestions about how to deal with recidivist offenders. I gave you some general suggestions about things we could do that are quite different to what I’ve seen of what we’re doing now.
“If the death penalty doesn’t deter, nothing will.”
Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean the death penalty is an effective deterrent. The US has the death penalty (for whatever reason), but if you look at their crime rates it doesn’t look like a particularly effective deterrent. Perhaps there are complex factors in the US that explain that. But more generally, I think that while you and I (and the people making the laws) would find the death penalty and effective deterrent, I don’t think it is effective for actual offenders . The reason is that to consider the consequences of your actions requires a long time frame (particularly if the consequences involve interacting with the legal system). I don’t believe that the lifestyles of most offenders lead to such a long run perspective. There are obviously some exceptions to this, but I think that trying to build these exceptions into a sentencing regime would make it so complicated as to be unworkable (and it would probably also be very unfair).
February 5, 2008 at 6:12 pm
“I gave you some general suggestions about things we could do that are quite different to what I’ve seen of what we’re doing now.”
No, all you suggested was a change of emphasis, more left wing solutions, less right wing solutions, I’m arguing up the level of both and have a more distinct seperation between them at the start of their criminal carriers with the emphasis on rehabilitation with them having the knowledge that they will be dealt with with finality if they’re not interested in reforming.
February 5, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Craig Ranapia’s comment strikes me as absolutely true. (But then I am a huge fan of Greek Tragedy.)
I personally find Andrew W’s initial comment amoral and unethical. There are several things that upset me about it.
1. The suggestion of the prisoner’s family paying the cost of incarceration to avoid his execution.
This implies that someone with no family support would be executed simply due to lack of financial support. It’s “Debt or Death”. If some one can pay the debt to keep you alive the prisoner lives. A prisoner with a poor family may have to allow their brother or son etc. to be killed.
This is utterly barbarous.
2. The suggestion of executing recidivist prisoners because they are expensive because they keep returning to jail.
Every person has (IMO) God given human rights – others may believe these rights originate from the State – You can’t kill a person because it is expensive to look after them, even if they are a prisoner. We can take away the dignity of their freedom for the greater good of society.
If we were unable to imprison people, then execution might have a role in serving the greater good, but our prisons are capable of removing a person to stop them harming other.
February 6, 2008 at 1:09 am
You can’t kill a person because it is expensive to look after them, even if they are a prisoner.
Indeed – because if we really want to run a coldly rational cost-benefit rule over having children, what economically rational person wouldn’t get sterilized with the proceeds from their first pay-cheque. Our legislation and social customs don’t regard filicide as an acceptable fiscal retrenchment strategy.
Ditto for not doing a Logan’s Run-like deal, and introducing compulsory euthenasia for the crusties before they start running through superannuation and costly and resource-intensive medical interventions like a bucket o’ bran washed down with a Metameucil chaser.
February 6, 2008 at 8:29 am
muerk: “I personally find Andrew W’s initial comment amoral and unethical. There are several things that upset me about it.”
and: “You can’t kill a person because it is expensive to look after them, even if they are a prisoner.”
You’re obviously a moral objectivist, believing that there is one morality, which is determined by your God, thats fine, though your Gods morality can clash here on Eath with that of other Gods.
I’m a moral subjectivist, I believe that while subjective morals are very real in a society, they are not absolutes, they change within any given society over time and differ between societies.
So in my view executions, or for another example, sex outside marriage, may be perfectly moral in one society, but not in another without one society being more moral or less moral than the other.
As a general principle, the morals that each society has have in part evolved as a consequence of the resources available to that society, eg. sex outside marriage became acceptable after contraceptives were widely available, solo parenting has become more acceptable as the wealth of our nation has increased and as a result it has been increasingly possible for children to be feed and reared by one parent.
Now imagine if, as a result of some catastrophy (a global collapse?) NZ was suddenly a poor and isolated nation, taking our wealth and technology back to what it was 100 years ago, if that happened many of the moral codes that existed then would be re-established, including, likely, the death penalty – because NZ would no longer have the excess wealth to support such people in idle luxury, life would have become too much of a struggle for the rest of the population to have the government take much of our wealth for such frivelous purposes.
February 6, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Come now, Craig. Every time a soldier squeezes of a round and puts a bullet through the head of an enemy it is carefully premeditated killing but it ain’t murder.
I do believe there are circumstances which would justify capital punishment but they would be pretty rare and pretty unequivocal. Burton probably would qualify, as would the gentleman in South Australia who killed a dozen or so people and pickled them in barrels.
February 6, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Andrew W:
“Now imagine if, as a result of some catastrophy (a global collapse?) NZ was suddenly a poor and isolated nation…”
This was why I said this in my original posting –
“If we were unable to imprison people, then execution might have a role in serving the greater good…”
And you’re right, I am someone who believes in an objective moral truth. I believe your moral relativism is wrong, but I think you should be able to freely express your values, and of course vote accordingly. Likewise I am free to debate with you the merits of your ideas.
I think that avoiding the death penalty is very important because it sends a social message that life is valuable (I would say sacred). It also avoids the need for someone to be an executioner. Life in prison also means that there is the hope that someone may regret and have remorse for their crimes. No one is beyond redemption.
February 6, 2008 at 10:24 pm
“Every time a soldier squeezes of a round and puts a bullet through the head of an enemy it is carefully premeditated killing but it ain’t murder.”
In WWII 80% of US soldiers aimed to miss their targets. Isn’t that interesting and telling on what and who we really are inside?
I recall Muldoon saying that he crossed the floor because Holyoake gave him and other young MPs the opportunity to visit with the executioners. After that, he could not in all conscience agree with his party’s position. And good on him. I see another poster raised the same issue: who is the executioner? Who are we to ask someone to do that?
I agree with some of the discussion above, to me it comes down to: is there an alternative to the ultimate penalty? There is, and it’s called life with no parole, ever. Burton should have received that sentence. When there is such an alternative, why should our society for which we are collectively responsible, lower itself to the level of the person who committed the crime that led to that judgement needing to be made? Mercy through the act of not executing a person who deserves to die, is a higher form of justice than the alternative.