Pros and cons of the death penalty

The US has carried out its first execution by firing squad in 15 years, as states continue to grapple with finding humane methods to enact the death penalty.

Convicted double murderer Brad Sigmon "chose to be killed by bullets" in South Carolina earlier this month, saying he "feared the alternatives" of the electric chair or lethal injection, said Sky News.

Protesters gathered outside the South Carolina Department of Corrections to demonstrate against executions in principle, but the use of a firing squad in particular is seen as a "relic of a brutal past not fitting for modern times", said US law expert Professor Austin Sarat on The Conversation. South Carolina is one of only five states that offer death by firing squad. However, its return stands as a reminder of America's "failed quest to find a method of execution that is safe, reliable and humane".

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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.

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 has traditionally been weaker, but there has been a rise over the past year. A survey by the think tank More in Common, carried out after the Southport attacker Axel Rudakubana was sentenced in January, found that 55% supported capital punishment, up from 50% in 2023, said The Times.

According to the most recent data, in 2023, "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 that year 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.

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."

Statistically this means that "for every 10 people on death row who are executed, at least one person on death row is innocent", said Dr Bharat Malkani at the University of Birmingham. It could be argued that exonerations "prove that the appeals system is working", but in reality, it is "more than likely that innocent people have been executed in recent years".

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 in 2023, backing calls to bring back the death penalty in Britain.

There is little evidence to support the idea that the death penalty reduces crime, but "fearmongering" 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."

The Trump administration moved immediately after taking power in January to commit "to pursue federal death sentences", said The Guardian. The president said he would seek capital punishment sentences for "all crimes of a severity demanding its use”.

Con: not a deterrent

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

Zimbabwe, whose president once faced the death penalty himself, abolished capital punishment after its senate approved a bill in December last year. 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".

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".

The argument that the death penalty delivers closure for victims' families is highly contested but often invoked by advocacy 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, carried out in December 2024, was "the only just punishment", said USA Today.

Con: expensive and easily botched

Death sentences in the US seem to have been on an "irreversible decline, perhaps even headed to extinction", said Lara Bazelon in Politico. Donald Trump, as well as "hardline prosecutors and tough-on-crime governors", have pushed for the "death penalty's resurrection", while the US Supreme Court has removed significant "roadblocks" to stop states from executing more prisoners.

Many are using the reintroduction of the death penalty for personal political gains under the notion "that it can make America a safer and more just place", said Sarat in The Guardian. But the push for states to escalate executions has led them to return to "unreliable" methods of killing prisoners, including the lethal injection, which has the "worst track record of any method of execution" and can lead to long and torturous deaths.

The death penalty can also be a more expensive procedure for the state. In countries with arduous appeals processes and strong human-rights organisations, the death penalty is, counterintuitively, far more expensive than imprisonment for life.