Death Penalty

Having just read a debate about the death penalty, I walked away contemplating why I fully support this punishment. Christians generally cite the Old Testament pointing out that God instructed the Israelites to use the death penalty. This is a faulty argument. Israel was a theocracy and if we are to adopt the laws and punishments of the theocratic nation of Israel, we should be executing homosexuals, blasphemers, those that dishonor their parents, adulterers, etc.

Also claimed is that the death penalty is a deterrent. In fact, one person emphatically declared that the death penalty has not deterred one murder. This was an interesting claim as it would involve proving a negative. There has not been a national poll on folks to see who was contemplating murder but chose not to murder due to the fact that they may receive the death penalty. Neither has there been a poll on murderers who said they chose to murder and would not have had they contemplated the consequences.   In any event, the function of the law is not to deter but to declare and make known what society’s boundaries are for her citizens. 

If the purpose of the punishment is meant as a deterrent, as claimed by many, our punishments are faulty. Rapes, theft, and a long laundry list other crimes are rampant in our society. We have a high crime rate and criminals are obviously not deterred from a life of crime.

The purpose of law is to establish boundaries that society deems as acceptable behavior. Society has declared, through its laws, that there are consequences to crossing the established boundaries. Anyone that is deterred by the consequences that they may suffer as a result of crossing the line is secondary to the purpose of the law. The purpose of incarceration is to punish a law-breaker and each punishment is designed to fit the crime. Anyone that is deterred from committing a crime is secondary to the purpose of punishment.

I also saw an argument that a person put to death does not have an opportunity to redeem oneself. Who cares? It is not our government’s job to redeem people. Even so, it is very clear that criminals are not being transformed from their criminal ways to law-abiding citizens by making their way through the penal system. The recidivism rate of convicted criminals is well over 65%. Most criminals are not deterred nor alter their behavior by spending time in prison. The Strike Three laws were instituted for this very reason. They are known in the legal field as “habitual offender laws” or “prior and persistent offender.”

Fifty-three percent of jail inmates were on probation, parole or pretrial release at the time of arrest. Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime. The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 accounted for nearly 4,877,000 arrest charges over their recorded careers. (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics)

Those committing lesser offenses than murder are not redeeming themselves and are reentering the prison system so there is no valid reason to believe that a murderer would have a better chance of turning their life around. Punishment and prison is not designed nor is it the purpose of our government to provide a means of making personal changes in one’s life. The government’s job is to provide a safe place for her citizens to live and for those that choose to break the laws, the government’s job is to remove those people and punish them for their crime.

In any event, a murderer has plenty of time before his punishment is carried out to redeem himself before meeting God, unlike the victim whose life was unjustly taken. The death penalty is just punishment for unjustly taking the life of another; not as a deterrent but meting out appropriate justice.

We need not look at the theocratic nation of Israel to determine if this is appropriate for today.

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.(Gen 9:6 ESV)

God has declared that the death penalty is just and appropriate for all people long before the nation of Israel came into existence.

Related posts:

1. The law nailed to the Cross? Or was it?
2. Death of an idol
3. Christianity and Misconceptions
4. Soldiers for Christ
5. Tolerance