Capital Punishment

Abstract:
India is a developing country with a crime index of 44.631. Section 53 of IPC2, lays down
various kinds of punishments including the death penalty to deal with the crime. Even though
capital punishment doesn’t fulfil the objectives of punishment, still it is imposed to deter
crime in the nation. Taking a life because the person took an innocent’s life doesn’t make this
action correct. There is another strict method also which contributes more towards deterrence
i.e., life imprisonment. Punishing a criminal is not about revenge only, it is more important to
note whether that punishment is helping in maintaining law and order or not and if not then it
is needed to be removed and more effective measures should be taken. Capital punishment is
considered the cruellest form of punishment, it is indeed but the question should be is this
cruelty helps in maintaining law and order which is the sole purpose of giving a punishment.

Key Words: Capital punishment, Life imprisonment, Deterrence, Rehabilitation,

Incapacitation, Confinement.

Introduction:
Punishments are introduced in a society to maintain law and order in a nation. Punishment for
a layman means harsh treatment which helps in deterring the same action in society. But
deterrence is not the only element in a punishment to maintain law and order. There are five
main purposes of punishment as follows3:
 Deterrence: It can be defined as the action of discouraging an action or event through
instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.4 In simpler terms, we can say it is the
lesson learnt by the offender through fear of punishment.
 Retribution: Basically, one can define it as revenge, like making the offender go
through something harsh like the way s/he made the victim or their family go through.
 Incapacitation: As the word gives a clear indication of its meaning, it is a way of
taking away the criminal capacity/ criminal tendencies from the offender.
 Restitution: It is making the offender pay for his crime, basically paying financially
like fines or other penalties.
 Rehabilitation: It is one of the most important factors in the purpose of punishment.
It can be defined as making a change in the psychology of the offender, or we can say
changing his way of thinking towards crime through counselling or other psychology
programs or by other means.

1
https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp
2
Indian kanoon
3
https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purposes-of-punishment/
4
Oxford Dictionary
Taking into consideration these purposes of punishment, Section 53 in The Indian Penal
Code5 defines various types of punishment in Indian society and those are:
Death;
Imprisonment for life;
Imprisonment, which is of two descriptions, namely:
(1) Rigorous, that is, with hard labour;
(2) Simple;
Forfeiture of property;
Fine.
From this section death penalty or capital punishment comes into the picture. It is considered
to be the cruellest form of punishment in our law but cruelty is a relative term, for some other
form of punishment might be the cruellest. But what needs to be focused on is does capital
punishment includes the main purposes of punishment? Or is it even a punishment?
Let us see these two aspects,

Theoretical Structure

The death penalty is a process of taking away the life of the offender. How taking away life
would contribute to incapacitation, rehabilitation or even deterrence?
Capital punishment doesn’t take the capacity of committing a crime of a person rather it takes
away all the capacities whether they are of doing a right thing or wrong. And when the person
is not alive the aspect of rehabilitation is obviously nil.
Speaking of deterrence come with certain facts. There are no such pieces of evidence that can
prove that capital punishment deters crime. China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Egypt are
some countries with the highest number of capital punishments.6 And the crime index7 of
these countries is China- 29.39 with a ranking of 115; Saudi Arabia- 24.72 with a ranking of
126; Egypt- 46.57 with a ranking of 65; Iraq- 46.95 with a ranking of 61; Iran- 49.11 with a
ranking of 53. And the rankings have been given for 142 countries. The lowest crime rate in
these 142 countries is of Qatar and as Wikipedia says capital punishments in Qatar are rare.
The facts clearly show that capital punishment doesn’t have such a drastic impact on the
deterrence of crimes.
Now comes the second issue is the death penalty even a punishment?
As we have stated above the death penalty doesn’t include three major objectives of
punishment but the one which it includes is retribution. Yes, I do agree that certain heinous
5
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/543586/
6
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/04/death-penalty-in-2020-facts-and-figures/
7
https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp
crimes generate the feeling of revenge in us but in my opinion death penalty is not exactly an
act of revenge, the death penalty is taking someone’s life instantly, how an instant death will
result in the offender to suffer for the heinous crime which he committed, he doesn’t even get
the time to realize his mistake. Imagine once, that a crime has been given imprisonment for 7
years for the heinous crime, he might realize his mistake in the confinement and he might be
in immense guilt for the same, so what will make him suffer more the guilt or the instant
death? And imagine after 7 years of confinement that offender may feel the need of changing
his way of thinking, he might become a better person and this will contribute to rehabilitation
as well as deterrence. So, one can conclude that the death penalty is not a punishment, it is an
escape from punishment. It is an escape from the chance of rehabilitation. Also, if we look
from the point of view of a criminal, death is not something that they fear, if they would have
feared it then they wouldn’t have committed a heinous crime in the first place. And in an
article give out a statement by Finzi-Smith, who is the general manager for safety and
security at the University of Technology in St Andrew saying that “Capital punishment will
not work in Jamaica as criminals do not fear death. What they fear is being forgotten.”8 I
completely agree with it, what they fear is being forgotten and that actually happens when
they have been announced to imprisonment for a long period.
So, the point to which light should be thrown up is when the offender doesn’t fear the death
penalty when it doesn’t affect him then what is the purpose of imposing it?

Review of Literature:
A report by Amnesty9 explains the myths regarding the death penalty with concrete facts.
One of the myths according to it is that the death penalty deters violent crime and makes
society safer. The report states facts about the USA states before the death penalty was
abolished and after the abolishing of the death penalty. And the facts clearly show that the
death penalty doesn’t have a significant impact on deterrence in society, further, it says that it
is used as a political tool and considered it is a cycle of violence.
We can see that it is used as a political tool for dominance over the people. A perfect example
of the same is China, nobody knows the exact number of executions in China due to their
policies, it uses executions as a tool for dictatorship in the nation.
And about the cycle of violence, a quote by Mahatma Gandhi is perfectly suited for this
“An eye for an eye makes the world blind.”
If you are imposing the death penalty on a murderer then how you are making any
difference? How it is making society any better? How does it is added to the rehabilitation of
one? It is continuing as a cycle of violence.

8
https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20180312/criminals-do-not-fear-death-they-fear-being-
forgotten
9
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/act500062008en.pdf
A blog in The Hindu10 has come forward with a different point of view regarding the
abolition of capital punishment. It has stated that “Between January 1, 2000, and June 31,
2015, the Supreme Court imposed 60 death sentences. It subsequently admitted that it had
erred in 15 of them (25%).” How one can do errors in such an important task? One’s life is at
stake due to these errors.
Along with these errors, another problem regarding capital punishment is the delay in
announcing the death penalty. The same is stated in a research paper11. It shows a study
saying that the victim’s family get more satisfaction in criminal justice when given life
imprisonment than the death penalty.

Aspects:
Till now we have seen four different aspects of capital punishment and those are
It doesn’t lead to deterrence; it is an escape from the punishment; it leads to a cycle of
violence; the errors in imposing it.
Another aspect of capital punishment is that it should be replaced with life imprisonment and
the reasons for it is the same as the above four aspects. Life imprisonment definitely will not
curb the problems regarding capital punishment completely but still, it is a better option than
it.
Firstly, Life imprisonment does contribute towards deterrence, as we have seen that criminals
don’t fear death, they fear they are being forgotten by their known ones, their families. And
life imprisonment brings this fear to the offender.
Secondly, it is not an escape from punishment, in my point of view, it is the highest level of
punishment. Because the minimum period of life imprisonment is 14 years and the maximum
can be complete life.12 And one has to suffer at least 14 years for the wrong which they have
committed. It is ample time for a convict to realise his mistake, work on himself, to improve
himself and there is a high chance that these 14 years in confinement will take away his
criminal tendencies which will contribute to deterrence, rehabilitation and incapacitation.
Thirdly, it doesn’t lead to any kind of violence, it is a great measure to deal with a heinous
crime and as the study shows that it also gives more satisfaction to the families.
Fourthly, there are chances that there can be errors in imposing life imprisonment too but it is
revocable while capital punishment once done can’t be revoked.
One might see life imprisonment also as revenge only, maybe it is, that’s why the suffered
family finds it more satisfactory, but one needs to understand that revenge i.e., retribution is
one of the purposes of punishments. Capital punishment is all about retribution only but life
imprisonment includes other objectives also like deterrence, incapacitation and most
importantly rehabilitation.
10
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/is-it-time-to-abolish-the-death-penalty/article25735508.ece
11
https://www.lawaudience.com/is-capital-punishment-humane-than-life-imprisonment/#_ftn1
12
https://lexforti.com/legal-news/life-imprisonment-in-india/#:~:text=Meaning%20of%20Life
%20Imprisonment,-Life%20imprisonment%20means&text=Delhi%20Administration%3B%20the%20Supreme
%20of,the%20rest%20of%20his%20life.
There is always a reason behind the crime committed it could buy anything like the
upbringing of the offender, his mental conditions, his psychology and there is a chance that
the offender might get better at some point in his life. And when one is in a confinement with
nothing to do, with so much of restrictions and many other circumstances, there is a good
chance of rehabilitation for him and confinement from his family for such a long period also
creates fear among them of committing any crime and it also sets an example in the society
for other criminals too.

The Perspective:
Humanity is an important aspect of the death penalty, but according to me if humanity will be
kept in mind while giving justice then it won’t be effective. Law doesn’t work on humanity.
For instance, if a beggar is dying for food, he needs it for his hungry children but can’t get it
legitimately, so he decided to steal it from a shop, if we make a decision based on humanity
here then the beggar is innocent but it is not fair for the shop owner. Yes, I agree that the
death penalty is more serious than a steal but we need to understand that the death penalty is
also not provided for a less serious crime, it is provided for a heinous crime and in the rarest
of rare cases. But the point of discussion here should not be humanity, it should be how the
death penalty is adding to the peace and justice in society? And all the above aspects show
that the death penalty is not contributing to the same. So why do we need it? After this aspect
of need, we should consider humanity, when it is not contributing to maintaining the law of
land then why take a life of a human.

Conclusion:
“Life is valuable.” And killing is never an option. The same goes for capital punishment even
if the offender has killed someone, taking his life in the response to it is also not right at least
morally as well as it is not helping society. The debate shouldn’t be about whether capital
punishment is humane or not, it should be regarding how it is helping our society after all law
is made for the smooth functioning of society only and if it is not contributing to the same
then why it is needed? Everyone deserves a chance and capital punishment takes away all the
chances itself. And if people are arguing in favour of capital punishment in the name of
heinous crimes, then they must look that taking away the offender’s life is not making
anything right in the victim’s life. You are giving him instant escape from everything, and an
offender of a heinous crime must suffer enough to realize his mistake and this realization
period is subjective and should be left to the discretion of the court.