Amnesty director says executions do not deter crime

Executions do not deter crime and may increase violent crime, Frank Johansson, director of Amnesty International’s Finnish section, told Yle. A botched execution in Tennessee has prompted renewed debate about the death penalty in the United States.

Johansson said research shows that executions can make society more violent by presenting state killing as an acceptable response to violence. The state kills a person who has already been detained and made harmless, he said.

He described the death penalty as cruel, inhuman and irreversible, with the risk that an innocent person could be executed. Johansson argued that retribution is its only rational justification and questioned whether a modern justice system should be based on an “eye for an eye” principle, which Europe abandoned during the Enlightenment.

The deterrent effect is also being sought through a public execution scheduled to be shown live on December 3. Nidal Hasan, a former army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death for a mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009.

In the United States, concerns about crime are closely tied to public safety, said Ari Helo, an associate professor of North American studies at the University of Oulu. People want streets and neighbourhoods to feel safe, he told Yle, adding that the country has high murder rates. Some also see the death penalty as a way to provide restitution to the families of murder victims.

The death penalty is in force in only some states, and public support has declined over the years. About half of Americans still support it, according to the article.