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The death penalty should exist as a deterrent but only in a society where the criminal justice system is aligned with social justice—i.e., in a state where there is no deviation from the way the community views justice and from the way the criminal justice system views justice. Criminal justice and social justice must be in accordance, as Bazelon asserts, in order for a system of law to work, to be fair, to be equitable, and to be effective. In a society where social justice is at odds with criminal justice, the death penalty may not be prescribed as a deterrent to murder because the two systems—social justice and criminal justice—are out of alignment. When social justice and criminal justice are in harmony, the death penalty may therefore be appropriately administered as a deterrent for murder. In this harmony, it is acknowledged by society that the criminal justice system, that the framework of law and order in the community, is moral and justifiable and can and should be respected. Out of this respect comes the acknowledgement that the justice system has the capacity and obligation to exercise force in order to support its laws. A system of rule that does not possess the force of its own convictions is a rule that will not last long.

The types of offenses that should be given the death penalty are those that are extremely serious—such as murder or drug trafficking or pedophilia. Anything that can be considered a serious crime that hurts society or an individual in a traumatic way is something that could be punishable by death. The problem is that the criminal justice system is often too corrupt and self-serving to actually be fair to people in society. That is why there are so many social justice advocates—women like Angela Davis, who opposes the death penalty and the criminal justice system, because she views it as a racist entity that has the aim of oppressing African Americans at its core. For example, she describes the prison-industrial complex as being “accompanied by an ideological campaign to persuade us once again…that race is a marker of criminality” (38). Because of this injustice at the heart of the criminal justice system, society is out of alignment in terms of morals, values and principles, with the criminal justice system. The principle of an eye for an eye has no moral force or bearing in such a society, as the people in society view the justice system as just as immoral as the criminals it proposes to prosecute.

That is why the justice system fails on so many levels in the U.S. It purports to be fair and equitable—yet justice is neither fair nor swift (as it is meant to be according to the law of the land). Instead it is slow and often unfair—as seen in many cases where corrupt law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges condemn innocent men (like in the case of Steven Avery of Making of a Murderer, who was falsely accused of murder, locked away in prison for years, and then finally exonerated when the real criminal was caught).

However, in a society where the justice system is actually fair and just and not corrupted by men with prejudice and bias, it can work and the death penalty can be used as a deterrent in order to back up the moral law with force. Does such a world actually exist? Is there any place in the world where justice is actually fair? This is hard to measure—but the fact that crime rates are so high in the U.S. and that the U.S. has the largest percentage of its population behind bars (and that the majority ratio of them African American) shows that Davis is more than likely correct in her assessment of the justice system in the U.S. Should the death penalty exist? Yes—in a just society. Should it exist in the U.S? No—not until the U.S. actually obtains a just system of justice.

Works Cited
Bazelon, D. L. “The morality of the criminal law.” Southern California Law
Review, 49 (1975), 385-405.
Davis, Angela. The Meaning of Freedom. San Francisco, CA: City Light Books, 2012.