Open Writing

A recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court that it was unconstitutional to execute anybody under the age of eighteen had me thinking; in this era of political correctness, just how far have we come with regards to punishment?

A little research soon put me in the picture. It would appear that almost half of the countries in the world have now either abolished capital punishment or have imposed a moratorium. Belarus and Uzbekistan are the only countries in all of Europe and Central Asia where it is still practiced. It is still legal in India, Korea and Japan, but rarely used.

Since 1999, China, Congo, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and United States of America are the only countries known to have executed citizens under the age of 18 years for their crimes.

At the beginning of the 19th century there were over 200 offences in England which carried the death penalty. In 1824, this was reduced to two, treason and murder. Between 1969 and 1995 capital punishment was wiped from the statutes of United Kingdom and many of her former colonies including; Malta, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and Australia.

Nevertheless, there are still many citizens of these countries who align themselves with a purely retributive theory of punishment. They belong to a pro capital punishment and ‘bring back the birch’ faction of society. Their sadistic overtones advocate such concepts of punishment as castration of sexual offenders and various other forms of mutilation. They argue that the trial, conviction and present methods of punishing an offender, who has committed a crime of violence is not enough to salve the moral indignation of society. I find this lack of acceptance of deterrence, prevention and reform as equally important parts in any theory of punishment totally appalling in our so-called Christian society.

So is corporal punishment a legitimate form of deterrence for crime?
I was brought to the point of airing my views on this subject the other day, after reading a letter to the newspaper arguing that the lads responsible for a recent spate of vandalism at the local scout hall should be birched. At the same time, I was amazed to learn that in New Zealand it was still legal for the Children’s Court to order the sentence of a whipping or a flogging up until 1936!

How can civilized human beings be so lacking in compassion as to harbour such a sadistic opinion? Is man basically aggressive? To me the very idea of tying up young boys and brutally beating them for breaking a window and stealing a couple of door handles is barbaric.

I’m not suggesting we should say, ‘naughty boys don’t do it again.’ I look upon myself as a very strict disciplinarian and consider respect for another’s property something which should be instilled into a child at a very early age. Any person found guilty of taking or damaging another’s property should pay full restitution even if it takes the rest of their life to do so!

What of more serious crimes you may ask, surely corporal punishment is justifiable there? Granted rapes, muggings and gangland bashings are heinous crimes not to be treated lightly if order is to be maintained in society, but surely by flogging the offenders we are condoning in our action that which we are condemning.

To regard a crime as solely a wrong choice between doing good and doing ill is a misconception. The commission of a felony involves an extremely complicated moral, social and psychological phenomenon resulting from the criminal’s inheritance. We all come into this world as innocent babes; unfortunately some of us become damaged by reason of neglect, emotional trauma, violence, abandonment, lack of love, or a destructive cocktail of many of these. Such extenuating circumstances make it unfair to hold these people responsible for their actions.

Every one of us is capable of committing a crime, so rather than condemning the criminal maybe we should think there but for the grace of God go I.

A violent offender is not a rational human being. He/she is either insane at the time of committing the offence by reason of provocation, or mentally ill long before he/she committed any crime. (Unfortunately, we must also bear in mind on occasions some are labelled violent offenders when they are totally innocent of any crime.)

For this reason the current trend is to treat the criminal rather than punish the crime. If punishment is needed this is part of the treatment. The aim is to find the cause of the offender’s rebellion against normal community standards and attack the problem from there. Various forms of treatment such as Group Therapy, Aversion Therapy and Psychological Counseling are carried out within the prison walls.

However, do not be deceived, to be taken without consent from ones home, family and friends, to undergo all those assaults on ones personality that modern psychotherapy knows how to deliver, to be remade after some textbook pattern of normality and to know this process will never end, until either one's captives have succeeded or until one has grown wise enough to cheat them with apparent success, includes most of the elements for which punishment is feared; shame, exile and bondage.

A return to a purely deterrent means of punishment such as corporal or capital punishment I find morally repugnant, as such a philosophy recognises deterrence as a means to an end rather than one objective of punishment among others. I see punishment inflicted for deterrence alone, as tending in the direction of gross cruelty, for the more painful it is, the more deterrent it is likely to be. Since a punishment which succeeds in deterring everybody from committing a crime is yet to be devised, there are always grounds for making it more severe in order to decrease the number deterred by it. Surely this would ultimately lead to tortures without limit.

I would not dispute that the vital purpose of the criminal law is protection of the community, however to achieve this at the expense of denying the fundamental humanity of even the most depraved criminal is in my view morally wrong. Surely in this day and age a preferable punishment for the most serious offenders would be life imprisonment without parole? So as not to be purely retributive, lifelong interment must also contain some thread of encouragement for reform, even if it is only to no longer have to share a cell or to be transported from a maximum security prison to a prison farm.

Don’t think for one minute this is the easy option. Just imagine being denied forever all those freedoms we take for granted; little things like being able to make a cup of tea, take a long leisurely bath, stroll to the dairy for an ice cream, sit in the park and feed the ducks, celebrate your birthday with family and friends or simply being able to plan your day or week or your next month. After a few years of this I’m sure any offender would soon come to wish they were dead.

Death is not the ultimate punishment. When a prisoner is executed, apart from a short time before the sentence is carried out, when he/she realizes all hope is lost, the only people to be punished eternally for the crime, are those who mourn the perpetrator’s passing.

As a footnote, I would ask those of you who prefer a retributive rather than a humanitarian theory of punishment to remember what Christ said to the crowd who wanted to stone the adulteress, “Let those who are among you who is without sin cast the first stone. Could you throw that stone?