Justice?
I have always had a really hard time with capital punishment. For many years, I thought that it was perfectly acceptable to have the death penalty to end a terrible person's life. A life for a life mathematically makes sense; it's a price to pay. But then South Dakota executed a prison inmate yesterday. When this situation arises so close to home, it makes you think more in depth about it.
It took quite a while for me to change my viewpoint on the death penalty. I am no stranger to politics or law, so looking at capital punishment from a justice viewpoint makes sense to me. The judicial system doesn't have feelings; it relies on facts and on what is "fair". Now, as a Catholic I have the Church's (and so the Lord's) view on the death penalty to take into consideration. The CCC says this:
(2267) "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68"
This was kind of a difficult pill to swallow when I first read it. At that time, I was completely against capital punishment. Basically the Church is saying that if there is no possible option, other than the death penalty, to keep the offender from causing harm to others, the state has the right to take that route. Only if necessary. Now, at the end of this excerpt from the Catechism there is a quote from Pope Saint John Paul II essentially saying that there is almost never a situation where the death penalty is necessary to keep the guilty party from harming others. It's like one of those "if-then" equations in math that nobody liked to think about or do.
So where does this leave us today? Well, historically it is likely that the death penalty was the only way to protect people from the guilty party. We have come a long way with technology, science, and judicial proceedings over the past century, though. Even the past 50 years have birthed developments that have exonerated many innocent in our prisons and tracked down the true criminals in those cases. In addition to that, security systems have become far more efficient in preventing breakouts and improving the safety of employees who work in incarceration facilities. Perhaps the most important advance regarding this arena is that of psychological medicine. Mental health is a booming area of the medical field, and it has proven to be useful both in learning effective punishment options (think solitary confinement, isolation...) and in providing treatment to those people who may not have been in complete control of their actions (this would include mental illnesses in various forms).
In my personal opinion, I think that America is far too advanced to use the death penalty. Some inmates on death row actually want to be killed because living in prison forever is more of a punishment to them than actually losing their life. In those cases, capital punishment ends up being more of a reward, which totally defeats its purpose. Then there is the obvious issue of taking a life at all. Shouldn't everyone have the chance to repent up until God says their time on Earth is done? Every life has value, regardless of their past. If people recant their ways then wonderful! If not, they were given the chance and will receive their true punishment on the other side. And then you run the risk of possibly killing an innocent person. Given, those situations are getting fewer and fewer all the time, but it is still a possibility.
It is certainly not a black and white issue. Capital punishment is a hot topic, and it can get very emotional. Unfortunately, it will probably never go away because evil is still very present in our world. The thing with evil is that it is often dressed up as other things. Sometimes it even takes the form of justice.
(2267) "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68"
This was kind of a difficult pill to swallow when I first read it. At that time, I was completely against capital punishment. Basically the Church is saying that if there is no possible option, other than the death penalty, to keep the offender from causing harm to others, the state has the right to take that route. Only if necessary. Now, at the end of this excerpt from the Catechism there is a quote from Pope Saint John Paul II essentially saying that there is almost never a situation where the death penalty is necessary to keep the guilty party from harming others. It's like one of those "if-then" equations in math that nobody liked to think about or do.
So where does this leave us today? Well, historically it is likely that the death penalty was the only way to protect people from the guilty party. We have come a long way with technology, science, and judicial proceedings over the past century, though. Even the past 50 years have birthed developments that have exonerated many innocent in our prisons and tracked down the true criminals in those cases. In addition to that, security systems have become far more efficient in preventing breakouts and improving the safety of employees who work in incarceration facilities. Perhaps the most important advance regarding this arena is that of psychological medicine. Mental health is a booming area of the medical field, and it has proven to be useful both in learning effective punishment options (think solitary confinement, isolation...) and in providing treatment to those people who may not have been in complete control of their actions (this would include mental illnesses in various forms).
In my personal opinion, I think that America is far too advanced to use the death penalty. Some inmates on death row actually want to be killed because living in prison forever is more of a punishment to them than actually losing their life. In those cases, capital punishment ends up being more of a reward, which totally defeats its purpose. Then there is the obvious issue of taking a life at all. Shouldn't everyone have the chance to repent up until God says their time on Earth is done? Every life has value, regardless of their past. If people recant their ways then wonderful! If not, they were given the chance and will receive their true punishment on the other side. And then you run the risk of possibly killing an innocent person. Given, those situations are getting fewer and fewer all the time, but it is still a possibility.
It is certainly not a black and white issue. Capital punishment is a hot topic, and it can get very emotional. Unfortunately, it will probably never go away because evil is still very present in our world. The thing with evil is that it is often dressed up as other things. Sometimes it even takes the form of justice.
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