Last month Donald Trump made it known that he would like to introduce the death penalty to drug dealers and traffickers. Inevitably, this polarising topic caused a small stir, primarily for all the hurdles such a suggestion would have to go through to become a reality.
The death penalty was abolished in the UK in 1965 (1973 in Northern Ireland) for murder but still remained in place for extreme offences such as treason until 1998, not that it was used in that time. In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom, prohibiting the restoration of the death penalty for as long as the UK is a party to the Convention. However, with Brexit looming and our position within the European Court of Human Rights possibly falling into question, could the death penalty be re-introduced into Britain?
Public Perception
On the day Theresa may handed in our Article 50 announcement of intent to withdraw from the European Union, a YouGov poll showed that 53% of Brexiteers wanted to reintroduce the death penalty. After the Manchester Bombing, independent politician Janice Atkinson demanded bringing back the death penalty for suicide bombers (a rather flawed idea for obvious reasons). Another survey at the beginning of this year stated that more than half (54%) of the Tories supported bringing back the death penalty. This was less so in other parties with 38% of Lib Dems and SNP members backing it along with 31% of Labour members.
So why not bring it Back?
Bringing back the death penalty would be no small feat, firstly we’d have to have left the ECHR to be able to re-introduce the penalty. We would also probably need some sort of public mandate to do so as the topic is so polarising that MP’s making such a decision independent of their constituents input would probably cause major civil unrest.
Another aspect that would make it difficult to justify would be the abuse of that power. In America 1 in 10 death row inmates get exonerated, just imagine if the UK executed an innocent man? This could have been the case had the death penalty not been abolished when the Birmingham Six were convicted of the 1974 Birmingham bombings. The judge even announced at the time of his regret that there was no death penalty and so had to give them life sentences.
Across the world, many death sentences are carried out for more trivial ‘crimes’ such as homosexuality, adultery and blasphemy. Some governments use it to suppress political opponents or instil fear into their citizens.
Public opposition would also be a massive hurdle for politicians to jump over. Whilst some elements of society champion the death penalty, the overwhelming majority of the British public are against it. This is evidenced in the National Census Social Attitudes Report which has been running since 1983 and has seen support for the death penalty drop from around 75% to 48% when the question was last asked in 2015.
Could it work?
In theory, yes. In reality? Probably not. The UK considers itself a progressive country and the re-intrduction of the death penalty would be seen as a step backwards in our evolution as a society. Even if the UK were to ever consider the possibility of re-introducing the death penalty and took the necessary steps to leave the ECHR, there would have to be numerous safeguards put in place to ensure the power was not abused.
On a personal level, the only way I could envisage the penalty working would be for the defendant to be proved guilty beyond any reasonable doubt with irrefutable evidence aplenty. For example, Fred West, who was found with 12 bodies buried under his house or Michael Adebolajo who beheaded Fusilier Lee Rigby whilst being witnessed by numerous people as well as being recorded on CCTV. These two examples were without a doubt guilty and therefore, under a death penalty initiative, would be liable for state execution.
So what are the arguments for?
• If someone murders someone else, they have given up their human rights, including the one to stay alive themselves
• The punishment should ‘fit the crime’ – if you have killed someone, you should be killed too
• Giving a killer the death sentence will stop them – and others – doing it again
• The very small chance of executing the wrong person is balanced by the benefits to society of putting off other murderers
And against
• The death penalty goes against our most basic human right – the right to life
• Being killed by lethal injection or being electrocuted is not always smooth and painless, sometimes it causes a painful death
• No-one has ever proven with numbers that killing murderers stops other people committing similar crimes
• Mistakes are sometimes made in the law – what if someone is killed who is actually innocent?
* Please note that Ambipro does not endorse the death penalty, any indications of how the death penalty might work or reasons to implement it are those of the author or resulting from research conducted whilst writing this blog.
