Review of Capital Punishment in Canada and how the problem emerged
Capital punishment in Canada, just like in any other country, was put into practice by the ruling government during the ancient times (Canada as a French colony) not until 1976 when the government decided to review this issue. Notably, one of the earliest records of capital punishment in Canada, for example, was a murder case of a French man who was punished by death for allegedly murdering an Englishman in 1746. According to Rankin (1979), he posits that capital punishment in Canada was removed from their criminal code in 1976 and was then replaced by a mandatory life sentence. As well, the Canadian government removed capital punishment from the National Defense in 1998. However, the evolution of capital law in Canada was as follows; in 1865, it was passed that crimes such as rape, murder, and treason were punishable through capital punishment. Moreover, in 1962 murder was divided into two the capital and non-capital murder, where capital murder was perhaps punishable by capital punishment. More broadly, 1962 marked the end of capital punishment as it went down to be the year that the last capital punishment was executed; in 1976, a motion to abolish capital punishment in Canada was passed, which saw the removal of capital from the Canadian Criminal Code. Unsurprisingly, however, the motion was reintroduced again in 1987, but all the lawmakers brought it down on a free vote. It is interesting to note that in the aftermath of the last execution of capital punishment in Canada, the execution resulted in mass protests since many people believed that Canada should have abolished this form of punishment.
Notably, it is through this protests that the debate on whether to abolish capital punishment or not emerged attracting a host of groups and individuals who had conflicting perspectives. While it was abolished in 1976, Gray, Robey, & Cameron (2019) drawing his illustrations from the Abacus research survey, he pinpoints that despite its abolition majority of Canadians are in support of the death penalty. He further explains that close to 58% of Canadians support the return of the death penalty to the detrimental of its opponents, such as the religious groups. The proponents of the reinstitutions of this form of punishment argue that it is less expensive and the most efficient way of deterring crimes. They further demonstrated that the death penalty should be reinstituted more specifically for first-degree murders so as to curb the ever-surging murder cases in Canada. The fight between the opponents and the proponents of capital punishment has sparked a heated debate on whether the government should reinstitute this form of punishment or not. Up until now, the Canadian religious movement against capital punishment has staged a movement to limit the scope and influence of capital punishment.
While many people are in support of the re-incorporation of capital punishment in Canada many research studies and groups demonstrate that capital punishment should not be reinstituted since; it is cruel and unusual, it does not respect the value of life, it denies the due process of law, capital punishment, it is not a viable way of a crime deterrent, the death penalty is skewed towards certain groups only, the prevalence of wrongful convictions and finally capital punishment often wastes government resources.
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One of the reasons for the abolition or rather the fight against the reintroduction of capital punishment is that capital punishment is always cruel and unusual. Capital punishment is simply a relic of the ancient days of penology in that during those times, acts such as slavery, branding, and other forms that aided capital punishment were particularly common. According to Schabas, (2019) he explicitly argues that such barbaric acts in the modern era have got no place in the civil society and by extension, only a few western countries still employ the use of capital punishes which goes to show that it truly has got no place as it is unusual. Moreover, Schabas (2019) further argues that capital punishment is unusual as only a random sample of convicted murderers receive death punishment, which perhaps demonstrates that this form of punishment is unusual and should be abolished.
Secondly, another reason fronted by capital punishment opponents is that capital punishment has no respect for the Godly given rights, or rather, capital punishment violates the basic principle of human rights. According to Johnston (2018) in the religious perspective, it’s only God that gives and always takes the life and therefore going by the facts that 80% of the Canadian people are Christians the idea of killing an individual as a punishment for committing murder doesn’t go down well among the Canadian nationals and therefore other means of carrying out or of punishing individuals should be incorporated. More broadly, Johnston (2018) further states that human rights are simply a violation of the most basic human rights, which is the right to life, and those in support of the death penalty claim that a murder crime justifies the abrogation of any right. However, from the Christian view, the basic right to life is not given by the government but by God himself, and therefore everyone belongs to God, and this means that it is only God who is allowed to take one’s life away. In a nutshell, capital punishment should not be reintroduced since the sanctity of life should not be taken by anyone except God.
Most notably, capital punishment among various groups and research studies doesn’t follow the due process of law, and therefore it should be completely abolished, and no one should ever reinstitute it again. Haines, (2017) expanding upon his social frameworks posits that the imposition of the death penalty is always unique or complex as it is more often than not arbitrary and irrevocable and this highlights that an individual cannot benefit from new evidence or new laws that might influence the reversal of a conviction. A law that doesn’t allow the reversal or the setting aside of a death penalty should not in any way be reintroduced to the system has it has a lot of flaws. In as much as all forms of punishment aren’t flawless, the complexity of this form of punishment doesn’t allow or doesn’t favor any flexibility associated with the mode of judgments, and therefore this clearly shows that this mode of punishment doesn’t follow the due process of the law.
In addition, capital punishment from a wide range of information goes to show that it is not an efficient way of deterring crime, and there is no need for reinstituting it. It is believed that those who support the death penalty always presume that it is a deterrent because they think that the severity of the punishment will deter people from committing murder or from denying one the chance of murdering again. They, however, support their argument on the grounds that people who commit murder do it in full glare, and they perhaps are aware of the consequences of their actions, and it is, therefore, rational to punish them by death, which is not the case. According to Bedau (2018), utilizing various social frameworks demonstrates that in the US, for example, a country still practicing this form of punishment have a homicide rate that is between 80-100 percent higher than countries that have abolished the death penalty and this clearly demonstrates how the death penalty is not crime deterrent. On the same not Layson, (2018) drawing from various studies in Canada argues that the country recorded the highest murder crime and police killings as well up until 1962 and since then the rate of homicide and murder related cases have significantly dropped which sheds light on the non-effectiveness of the death penalty in regard to deterring crime. In a nutshell, statistical studies primarily based on the trends of capital punishment and crime reduction in states that have abolished this mode of punishment support the claim that the death penalty is no crime deterrent, and therefore it should not be reintroduced.
Besides another reason why the death penalty should not be reintroduced in Canada is that it is greatly skewed as it affects certain groups. The prevalence of the death penalty in countries practicing this act demonstrates that it is performed more to specific groups more than it is executed to other groups. According to Baldus, Woodworth, & Pulaski (2010), drawing their illustrations from all countries practicing the death penalty from around the world, they showcase that capital punishment isn’t just by itself as some specific groups are executed unjustly. He demonstrates that the death penalty is more common among mentally ill groups, the poor, and, more importantly, minorities such as blacks. In Canada a study that was done by (National Justice Department of Canada) to ascertain the percentage of death row or rather the racial distribution of death sentences in Canada the results were that there was an 85% likelihood for a black say for example to be sentenced to death and 15% likelihood for a non-white to be sentenced. In the US, for example, mentally ill people make up close to 10% of those who have been sentenced and while the blacks despite making up only close to 13% have a death sentence percentage of 40%. This, therefore, clearly demonstrate how the death penalty is skewed towards specific groups and, therefore, the Canadian government should not reinstitute this form of punishment. Besides, another reason against capital punishment is that it wastes a lot of government resources. According to Haines (2017), he points out that capital punishment squanders time, money, and energy of the courts, and it is counterproductive as a means of controlling violent crimes in society. More often, the funds that could be used in correctional institutions, as well as funds that could be used to prevent and control crime, are spent on capital punishment. Therefore the government should spend more funds on training and rolling out efficient correctional measures rather than spending money on punishment through a death sentence. Lastly, capital punishment should not be reinstituted since Canada, as a country that initially practiced capital punishment, has a history of wrongful death convictions, and it is for this reason that the opponents of capital punishment are fully against its reintroduction. According to Roach, (2011) wrongful conviction in Canada has had a high profile and among the many people who were wrongfully convicted of the crimes that they did not commit includes; David Milgaard was sentenced in 1969 for a murder case that he didn’t commit and was released 22 years later while Clayton Johnson was convicted of murder in1993 but later in 2002 the Nova Scotia court released him citing no evidence. These wrongful convictions, however, mean that the justice system isn’t flawless, and therefore the reintroduction of the death penalty will definitely deny people justice.
On the other hand, the proponents of the reinstitution of capital punishment offer three counterclaims that support the reinstitution. One is that they point out that the country should be tough on crime, and the only way this can be implemented is by reintroducing the death penalty. According to Warr & Stafford (2018), they argue that people engage in criminal activities any time they wish due to the lack of severe punishment, and he further asserts that life imprisonment isn’t a severe means of punishment, which presumably translates that death penalty should be reinstituted. Moreover, the proponents of capital punishment also argue that death penalties prevent future crimes. According to Unnever, Cullen, & Fisher (2015), they point out that capital punishment is reserved for those who undertake severe crimes in the society and if the government rolls out efficient scrutiny measures to avoid wrongful convictions death penalty will be the most efficient way of curbing crimes in Canada, and it should, therefore, be reinstituted.
References
Rankin, J. H. (1979). Changing attitudes toward capital punishment. Social Forces, 58(1), 194-211.
Gray, E., Robey, R., & Cameron, D. (2019). Attitudes to the death penalty. Ipsos MORI, International Social Trends Unit.
Schabas, W. A. (2019). International law and the abolition of the death penalty. In Comparative Capital Punishment. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Johnston, H. (2018). Death By Religion? Individual Differences in Attitudes About Capital Punishment.
Haines, H. (2017). Flawed executions, the anti-death penalty movement, and the politics of capital punishment. Social Problems, 39(2), 125-138.
Bedau, H. A. (Ed.). (2018). The death penalty in America. Oxford University Press.
Layson, S. (2018). Homicide and deterrence: Another view of the Canadian time-series evidence. Canadian Journal of Economics, 52-73.
Baldus, D. C., Woodworth, G., & Pulaski, C. A. (2010). Equal justice and the death penalty: A legal and empirical analysis. Upon.
Roach, K. (2011). Wrongful convictions in Canada. U. Cin. L., Rev., 80, 1465.
Warr, M., & Stafford, M. (2018). Public goals of punishment and support for the death penalty. Journal of research in Crime and Delinquency, 21(2), 95-111.
Unnever, J. D., Cullen, F. T., & Fisher, B. S. (2015). Empathy and public support for capital punishment. Journal of Crime and Justice, 28(1), 1-34.