On 16 January 2021, Dustin Higgs died by lethal injection. Higgs, convicted for his role in the murder of three women in 1996, was the last to receive the death penalty under Donald Trump. Starting in July 2021, the United States carried out 13 federal executions, the first in 17 years and more than the previous 56 years combined.
On the 8th of January as Higgs was being prepared for execution, another man, Eddie Lee Howard, exonerated after 26 years spent defending his innocence. Howard’s fight for freedom has opened the conversation around capital punishment — is killing another human justifiable? Even if they have committed the most heinous crimes?
Is the death penalty effective?
The United States is one of 54 countries that still practice in the death penalty. Out of the 195 countries recognised by the UN, 54 is not a large number. That is, until you consider that over 60% of the world’s population resides in these countries, including Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan.
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) is a non-profit organization in the US that acts as a source of information on capital punishment for the media and the public. The DPIC released data from 1990 through 2018, comparing murder rates in states with the death penalty and in those without. Contrary to what one would expect, murder rates were not lower in states that follow capital punishment; in fact, they were higher.
Race on the death row
In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, it is important to look at the death penalty through the lens of race. Black people, and people of colour in general, is overrepresented on death row, as in prisons. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that despite comprising only 13.4% of the US population, more than 43% of criminals executed since 1976 have been Black.
Although people of color make up only about 39% of the US population, they also make up over 44% of all inmates executed since 1976. Black women in particular constitute 25% of all women receiving capital punishment; almost double their population size.
Execute to suppress
In absolutist states, pseudo-democracies, and defunct democracies, governments are turning towards capital punishment to permanently silence those who express dissent. For North Koreans, the death penalty is awarded for everything from grand theft and murder to political dissidence and the consumption of illegal media.
China, a self-described “socialist consultative democracy,” is the world’s top executioner. In 2019 they reported 657 executions, a number that excludes the thousands believed to have been carried out undisclosed. The Muslim Uyghurs are targeted; the death penalty is a powerful tool in the Chinese Communist Party’s arsenal, further fueling their genocidal aspirations.
To abolish, or not to abolish – that is the question.
In February 2021, after Trump’s 4-year reign of terror, 82 advocacy groups called on the Biden administration to do away with federal executions altogether. In their letter to the president, they make a strong case against the death penalty, explaining that it is inhumane and discriminatory. While Biden has spoken out about his opposition to executions, he shows no signs of acting on his words anytime soon.
Regardless of whether total abolition is the way forward, a careful re-examination of facts can suffice to spur reform in our view of capital punishment.