Capital punishment: history, arguments, and policy debate

Capital Punishment

In more than half the countries of the world, there is no death penalty as was the case in Australia for a long time. As many as 76 countries do not have death penalty for any crime. In Australia, Queensland was the first among the states to abolish death penalty in 1922 and the last death penalty was carried out in 1913. (Capital Punishment)

In many countries, punishment is very harsh and the nature of punishment is comparable to capital punishment. One such country is Saudi Arabia. There the Shari at convention or the religious laws of Muslims are applicable. When a Muslim changes his religion to some other religion the punishment is death, if he does not convert back. For others there are many other equally harsh punishments, and in October 2000, Amnesty International reported that two teachers of the Ismailia Shia faith, who were arrested in April 2000, were convicted on the charges of sorcery and punished with 1,500 lashes. They are also Muslims of another branch. In the beginning of 2002, in the city of Abqaiq, 2 Christians from Philippines were arrested in Dammam town for carrying out a Roman Catholic prayer service in their house. They were sentenced to a month in prison and punished with 150 lashes. Then they were deported. (Encyclopedia: Status of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia) Thus it is clear that every state has a right to punish, in whatever manner it chooses.

The situation of death penalty is that 15 countries have abolished it for all crimes except wartime crimes. Another 21 countries have the penalty in the books, but have not carried out the death penalty for more than 10 years. There are a total of 112 countries which are not using death penalty in practice. Another 83 countries have the death penalty, but rarely use it. During 2002, there were executions of at least 1,526 prisoners in 31 countries and there was also the sentencing to death of another 3,248 persons in 67 countries. According to figures of 2002, 81% of all executions took place in China, Iran or U.S.. For China, the recorded figure is 1,060 executions, for Iran the figure is 113 and for U.S. The figure is 71. In U.S., there has also been the release of 107 prisoners, after they were found to be innocent. (Capital Punishment)

Even when Queensland had abolished the death penalty, the situation in U.S. was very harsh and there were brief trials followed by rapid punishment. In 1900, the rate of murders per 100,000 of population was 1.2, and this brings up an important question in the U.S. As to whether death penalty brings about a reduction in the number of murder cases. It is to be understood that the homicide rate has been on the increase in the U.S. (America: The Most Violent Nation?) Well the situation in U.S. is different as there are arms available to many citizens and probably that leads to a lot more of violence and thus the situation is not comparable with other countries.

Though there has not been any clear move on the issue by the Australian government, the Prime Minister John Howard seems to have given the authority to the state governments to take the decision on the matter. This is probably legally correct since they were the ones to abolish death penalties in their own states. John Howard has even suggested that the Victorian liberal opposition may even try to reintroduce the death penalty and find out the reactions from others. At the same time, this is a position that is directly opposite to the position taken by the Attorney General Daryl Williams, who had mentioned that there are obligations on Australia from international responsibilities and bipartisan policy to overturn any such moves by any state government. The major decision was publicly announced on August 8, 2003. Howard said clearly that he was not publicly opposed to torture for Amrozi before death, and he did not mention clearly the position that Australia would take for trying to save one of its citizens from death in Indonesia. (Howard to the states: Capital punishment your call)

Since it was a sensitive issue, there were also surveys among the general population and it seemed from the surveys that only 7% of the respondents felt that Amrozi should be executed. Some 11% agreed with the execution, another 7% were undecided, 24% strongly did not agree with the execution and 52% were strongly opposed to the execution. Regarding the total issue of death penalty, 53% of the respondents felt very strongly that political leaders from Australia should express clear support for the Australian policy of not applying the death penalty, another 22% felt strongly on the same lines, a group of 7% did not really know what was to be done, some 12% felt that it should not be done, and another 6% felt very strongly that it should not be done. Even on the rights of the state to reintroduce death penalty for some crimes that are seen to be very heinous, only 7% felt very strongly that the state had the rights, 15% felt strongly that the state had the rights, 5% were undecided about the issue, 26% felt strongly that the states did not have the rights, and 47% felt very strongly that the states did not have the rights. (Terrorism and Capital Punishment: An Ethics Survey) Thus it is clear that a large section of the Australian population is opposed to the reintroduction of death penalty.