The pros and cons of the death penalty

Joe Biden's decision to commute the sentences of 37 inmates facing the death penalty – converting their punishments to life imprisonment without parole – left "a range of emotions" in its wake, "from relief to anger", said The Associated Press. Death penalty opponents "lauded" the outgoing president, while supporters "criticised the move" as an assault to common decency.

Capital punishment has long been the subject of fierce debate worldwide and Biden's decision, which leaves only three inmates in the US on federal death row, has reignited the conversation.

More than 70% of countries across the world have abolished capital punishment, said the Death Penalty Information Center, a US-based non-profit organisation tracking wrongful executions. There's been a "clear trend" away from the death penalty in recent decades, but the US "remains an outlier" among its allies and democracies in general.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Last year, "the lowest number of countries on record carried out the highest number of known executions in close to a decade", said Amnesty International. The charity recorded that 16 countries used the death penalty in 2023 and only four carried out more recorded executions than the US: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia. Death sentences, though, were recorded in 52 countries across the world.

Pro: public support

A survey by Gallup found that a majority of Americans (53%) are "in favour of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder". That is a low "not seen since the early 1970s" and driven by younger generations – only 47% of Millennials and 42% of Gen Z respondents agreed with the same statement.

In the UK, support for the death penalty is weaker. A National Centre for Social Research poll in 2023 found 41% of Britons, and only 38% of Gen Z respondents, were in favour of capital punishment "for some crimes".

In other countries, like Japan, support for the penalty is quite strong. A 2019 government survey "found that 80% of people saw the death penalty as 'unavoidable'" and only 9% wanted it abolished, said AFP News.

Con: wrongful execution risk

"The death penalty carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person," said the Death Penalty Information Center. It found that in the past 50 years, at least 200 people who were on death row in the US have been exonerated. "The remain­ing ques­tion is how many inno­cent lives are worth sac­ri­fic­ing to pre­serve this punishment."

Often, "people from the margins of society, particularly people of colour" are those who "disproportionately face execution" due to "racial bias, inadequate legal defence, incentivised informants and unreliable evidence", said The Innocence Project, regarding cases in the US. These factors "consistently pervert justice at the expense of innocent lives".

Pro: could reduce crime

"Nobody has ever committed a crime after being executed," Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said last year, backing calls to bring back the death penalty in Britain. A subsequent poll by Omnisis found 43% of British respondents agreed capital punishment would be an effective deterrent.

There is little evidence to support the idea that the death penalty reduces crime, but "fearmongering around crime remains a potent political weapon", particularly for Republican politicians in the US, said Duncan Hosie in The Washington Post. "Over-the-top fealty to the death penalty still resonates with some voters. And as long as it does, opportunistic politicians will exploit these impulses to gain power."

Con: not a deterrent

"Study after study shows that the death penalty does not deter crime," reported Scientific American. Instead, it is "cruel and inhumane" without showing significant benefits.

Zimbabwe, whose president once faced the death penalty himself, is set to abolish capital punishment after its senate approved a bill this month. Before the bill was approved, said Amnesty International, there was a group pushing for it to remain "in the erroneous belief that it acts as a deterrent to crime". But "no empirical evidence" exists to prove that it "results in the reduction of crimes worldwide".

In South Asia, where several states "firmly believe that the death penalty can deter people with evil intent", the punishment can apply to a wide range of crimes, said The Diplomat. But overall, the "death penalty is not a strong enough deterrent", Dr. Nidhi Saxena, international law faculty member at India's Sikkim Central University, told the publication. Rather, "effective laws and order are".

Pro: sense of retribution

Of the "four major justifications for punishment" – deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation and retribution – it is the last of these that has "often been scorned by academics and judges", said Robert Blecker, a professor emeritus at New York Law School, in The New York Times. But "ultimately, it provides capital punishment with its only truly moral foundation".

Supporters often point to religious justification based on the Bible, citing "an eye for an eye". But retribution is "not simply revenge", said Blecker. "Revenge may be limitless and misdirected at the undeserving, as with collective punishment. Retribution, on the other hand, can help restore a moral balance. It demands that punishment must be limited and proportional."

The argument that the death penalty delivers closure for victims' families is highly contested but often invoked by advocate groups and those directly impacted. For the family of Jamie Rose Bolin, who was brutally murdered by neighbour Kevin Ray Underwood in 2006, the death penalty is "the only just punishment", said USA Today.

Con: extremely expensive

Many supporters of the death penalty argue it is more cost-effective than feeding and housing an inmate for the whole of a life-without-parole sentence. But in countries with arduous appeals processes and strong human-rights organisations, the death penalty is, counterintuitively, far more expensive than imprisonment for life.

Exact costs differ depending on the country, and in the US, depending on the state. According to a 2022 report, the Ohio Legislative Service Commission found "the total amount expended in a capital case is between two-and-a-half and five times as much as a noncapital case" – in some instances, this means an added cost of between $1 million (£798,150) and $3 million (£2.4 million) per case.