When things are not going well in a society, there is a tendency to place the causes of all kinds of phenomena outside human control and responsibility. One also often sees an almost panicky hardening of positions. Such a development is currently underway both in our country and elsewhere.
Death penalty
There is no doubt that our culture is hardening. Aggression in traffic is increasing, video tapes are available for rent showing murders, gruesome accidents, assaults and even cannibalism. Let’s not discount the violent games for young people either. Furthermore, there has been an increase in crime of approximately 1000 percent since the early 1960s. This also has quite a few consequences: the public has started to feel unsafe and also believes that the judicial system is not functioning properly.
The combination of fear of crime and dissatisfaction with the functioning of the police is converted by many people into an aggressive attitude: as long as a certain type of criminal is given the death penalty, order will automatically be restored, or so the reasoning goes. The background of this line of thought can be understood from both psychology and sociology.
After the Second World War, until well into the 1970s, there was immense optimism about the modelability of people and society, which would mean that we can learn and unlearn all kinds of things, including criminal behavior. Within psychology, this idea was rooted in behaviorism, which once took the position that anything could be done from a small child.
On a sociological and economic level, this way of thinking was translated into the feasible society, the planned economy and so on. Now that it has gradually become clear that we are not able to learn and unlearn everything at every age, and after it has become clear that the course of events in society is far from feasible and predictable, there are calls for also reintroduce the death penalty. A few considerations.
Our criminal law has three purposes: preventing someone from taking the law into their own hands (which can take the form of revenge attacks), retaliation and preventing recurrence. However, the third objective of law mentioned is the most important.
It is clear that the death penalty adequately meets this need. However, an amendment to the Constitution is necessary for the possible reintroduction of this measure. A cynical argument put forward by some of its proponents is that the measure is cheap compared to long-term imprisonment. That too cannot be denied, but there are more sides to the coin.
Of great importance is the fact that the death penalty has no deterrent effect on potential criminals. Many a crime is committed on a whim , which means that the perpetrator does not care about the existence or otherwise of the death penalty. When (re)introducing this punishment, at least two factors must be weighed against each other, namely dealing with a person and its effect on society. If there are more murders thanks to the death penalty, this punishment will not help you much.
Conversely, opponents of the death penalty say that this is an irreparable intervention. If mistakes have been made, the action cannot be corrected . That argument makes sense: at least 28 people have been put to death in the United States who later turned out to be innocent.
But it will be clear that other forms of punishment also carry a form of irreparability : anyone who is released after twenty years in prison because his innocence has been proven, has lost a large part of his life, and life imprisonment is a death penalty for term. Finally, a general argument against the death penalty is that this (retaliatory) measure conflicts with the right to life. That is true, but imprisonment is an infringement of the right to freedom, which is also one of the basic values of human existence.
What does someone experience during the execution?
Shoot to death
This task is usually performed by a group of people who mainly target the chest. The story that one half of the group shoots blanks and the other does not is nonsense: blanks do not recoil, but real bullets do.
The bullets leave large holes in the body because ribs break and slide inwards. The holes become extra large because the tissues contain a lot of water, which evaporates due to the high temperature of the bullets. The convict dies of hemorrhage and suffocation. In this type of execution, the victim would have been observed to contort his face and dilate his pupils, symptoms consistent with feeling severe pain. It doesn’t stop there. Unconsciousness and death take a while: it takes a few seconds before the brain no longer receives blood.
To hang
The intention is to break the neck and pinch off blood vessels leading to the head and brain. To achieve this, the convict must fall a considerable distance. When the neck breaks, the face turns blue, the tongue comes out, the eyes bulge, limbs move wildly and the convict loses urine and feces. Sometimes another heartbeat is registered twenty minutes later.
If the neck has indeed given way, in theory the victim will no longer feel anything from his body, but he will probably have a lot of pain in the face due to stimulation of the facial nerve (the trigeminal nerve). If the neck is not broken, but merely sprained (more or less as with a large hernia), part of the brain is still supplied with blood for some time via arteries that run through the cervical vertebrae.
What happens then is hard to imagine: apart from the reactions mentioned earlier, the convict sometimes seems to make screaming sounds. And if the cervical spine remains intact, the entire process takes much longer. In that case, death is the result of gradual suffocation as the trachea is compressed, while the airflow is also blocked as the base of the tongue rises.
Stone
Usually the convict is buried up to the neck in sand. The head is covered with a cloth. Throwing continues until the victim no longer screams and moves, or until no new blood appears on the cloth. Death occurs due to bleeding inside and outside the skull, and of course bone fractures also occur. The process often takes a long time, and is undoubtedly highly painful. This is evident from dilated pupils, sweating, screaming and contracting muscles in the face.
Beheading
Usually the sword or ax must be handled more than once. After the spinal cord is severed, it takes a while before one becomes unconscious. Gruesome animal experiments suggest this could take about ten seconds. With this method too, the convict screams and moves. He is probably in a lot of pain because of the severely damaged tissue in the neck, and he may even feel his entire body as an extremely painful phantom immediately after the decapitation (as after amputations).
Electrocution
2000 to 3000 volts at 6 to 12 amperes are applied for a few seconds. If the heart is still beating afterwards, which is often the case, the procedure is repeated. During the administration of the current, the convict grips the chair and moves so violently that bones often break. The tissues swell, the body steams, and urine and feces are lost. The convict is conscious for a few seconds, and in the worst case he wakes up repeatedly. Death occurs because the brain stem reaches a temperature of up to sixty degrees over time. There is no doubt that the whole process is extremely painful and otherwise highly unpleasant.
Gassing
Most people try to hold their breath for as long as possible. They scream, make wild movements, their faces contort and the gas is likely to cause a massive headache, as well as respiratory irritation and a feeling of suffocation. All that can take a long time.
Injections
A cannula is placed in a vein in the elbow or wrist via a needle. Three substances are successively administered: a strong sedative, which causes the person to become unconscious, the muscle relaxant curare, which stops breathing movements, and finally the substance potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Unconsciousness sets in within ten seconds, and the procedure is virtually painless.
But here too there are exceptions: after the injection of the third, deadly liquid, the American James Autry was still conscious for several minutes and complained of pain.
Can it be done differently?
I don’t think prison or the death penalty is a good solution. The combination of retaliation and prevention of recurrence is much more suitable for measures aimed at correcting the damage where possible through alternative punishments. Confront someone with the grief of relatives and let them pay for the damage or alleviate the suffering by working. Moreover, imprisonment encourages recidivism and the death penalty is an act in the dark.