Pros and cons over death punishment

The imposition of death punishment

Death penalty has been a subject of legal and moral disputes over centuries. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, this rule ceases to be effective in many parts of the world. Although many states mostly in Europe now abandon it, other countries such as the United Stated, China and India still defend it. Indonesia belongs to the latter group.

The recent execution to Sumiarsih and her son Sugeng who found guilty of intentional murdering to the family of a police in Surabaya few years ago and the upcoming execution to the Bali bombing perpetrators have drawn a great attention from the public and the media. The debates stem from a basic question whether death penalty is a proper punishment in this civilized era and whether it is an effective way to deter potential criminals.

The opponents of death sentence contend that this is a state’s violence upon its citizens who have evidently committed certain crimes. Some others argue that death sentence violates human right and should therefore be lifted. Others simply consider this sentence ineffective in diminishing the criminal rate and will eliminate a possibility for the offenders to repent and return to the right path. Instead of killing the killers, some suggest more human and less severe sentence. Meanwhile the proponents mostly argue in reverse from their contenders claiming that such a punishment is a proportional retaliation and is capable of reducing crimes.

Other proponents stem from religion’s point of view. According to Costanzo (1997) religions recognize capital sentence. In the laws of Moses, for example, death penalties is meant to fulfill the God’s command and to avoid His anger to the society that is unsuccessful to punish sinners. Therefore the sinners must be murdered to “purge the evil from the midst of you”. Likewise, in New England from the late seventeenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century, a religious ceremony was conducted near to the hallow where the ministers conveyed sermons appealing that the land should be cleaned up from any crimes as a symbol of disobeying God. In Islam, the concept of qisas (equal retaliation of punishment) has been affirmed in the Qur’an. It maintains that life must be kept secure at any expense, and any intention and planned effort directed to take illegally someone’s life away will be punished with an equal retaliation. Killing for living is the rational behind this legal stipulation.

However, the religious grounds for death penalty run at odd in the modern time and are replaced with rational human arguments. The most common logic to use behind death sentence is the concept of deterrence. According to it, the cruelest punishment will at best deter future potential criminals. If the penalty for a motorbike driver without using a helmet, for instance, were only one thousand rupiah, many people would not eager to use a helmet. Conversely, if a driver caught driving without a helmet and is obliged to pay fifty thousand rupiah, there will be fewer people driving without it. Similarly, if the strictest and most torturous punishments are imposed to criminals, this will deter future crimes at a maximum result.

Objections are often heard about this theory. It argues that capital sentence does not automatically deter potential crimes. Although death punishment has been imposed, crimes with its various means, forms and modus operandi will occur again and again. So why not switch to other kind of punishment which is more human than killing criminals? Why do not let the convicted spent the rest of their entire life in prison so that they can be saved from the Hallow or fire squad?

The objection might be accepted in certain conditions. Of the aims of punishment is to fulfill the justice of the victims and their families as the most suffering party. Therefore if the family of the victim grants pardon to the offender, then that might lighten the punishment and discount them from capital sentence. Or if the state authority consider that pardoning the offender would be better and not violate the justice of the victim and the society at large. However, in other cases, I think death penalty remains applicable for some other reasons, especially if the crime threatens public interests and security. Disrupting state’s interest and spreading terror attack that create public insecurity can be subsumed under this category and no offenders should be pardoned in this respect. Deterrence theory also applies in certain cases.

It is not always true that severe punishment like capital sentence will run ineffective in diminishing the crime rate as the objections suggest. Take the example from the Singapore’s strict rule against drug abuse and smuggling. In late 2005, the court in that country meted out a death penalty to Nguyen Van Tuong, an Australian citizen who smuggled illegal drugs to the country. Since then we have no more heard the similar crime, showing that capital punishment by hanging up the offender proves to be an effective means. The discovery of the largest illegal ecstasy fabric in Banten by the police last year and in another place in Surabaya recently demonstrates that the offenders overlook the punishment. Death sentence is the best punishment for excessive illegal drug producers and smugglers because they are threatening the public interest. Most consumers are the youths who are our next generation. This crime endangers the entire society and corrupts the youths’ morality. Therefore it is not only a crime ruining human body, but also social and political peril that endanger young generation and the strength of our country.

Likewise, terrorists deserve capital punishment as well. Terror attacks not only cause physical damages but also symbolic and psychological devastation. They have claimed many lives, mostly, if not all, innocent people. They have also created social insecurity, discouraged economic growth and caused instability and panics since people are afraid of running their businesses, observing services and worships and doing other regular activities. By imposing death penalty to terrorists, it will cut off permanently their chance from escaping the jail or simply from spreading their thoughts and extreme ideology through their notes, memoirs or books often written while they are in prison. Kastari’s escape from the jail in Singapore could be an important message that terrorist remains dangerous and might pose even a greater attack upon fleeing from prison.

Even moratorium of punishment to terrorists is not less dangerous. Because of the late execution, one of the Bali bombers Imam Samudra publishes his book Aku Melawan Teroris (I am against terrorist) attempting to convince his intended audience that his and his fellows attacks are justified by the scriptural text. In this book, he defends such actions from an Islamic perspective and claims them as waging jihad and retaliation against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This could be dangerous ideology misread and misinterpreted from the text since no jihad is conducted against unarmed, civil innocent people and not waged in the battlefield. This book has been reprinted for several times and has run out of its last editions. This is a victory of terrorists. Although they might be executed soon, their ideology remains alive for they have successfully documented it.

Lastly, public demand must also be taken into consideration in imposing death sentence. The recent online public poll conducted by SCTV, a private Indonesian’s television, about death sentence reveals that 99% respondent are in favor of this punishment, while the rest either disagree or simply put a neutral stand to it. Again, all these are obvious clues that death punishment for the reason of protecting public interest and security meets with a greater public demand of the society.