death penalty news August 16, 2005
SOUTH AFRICA: Solution to death penalty August 16, 2005 The death penalty is a divisive issue, with debate for and against. Both sides have valid points. I support capital punishment (CP), but not primarily as a deterrent - although deterrence more often than not becomes an impact/effect - rather as a security issue for most of our citizens? and peace of mind. As a South African living abroad, preparing to come back, the crime level, especially murder, is my real concern. Opponents of CP say the innocent, wrongly accused, are the easiest victims of CP - this is a justice issue and I agree it is a real problem. South Africa is in a unique situation: it does not help us to follow the example of the "civilised world" in abolition of CP. We should look at our own unique situation; one does not need to be a social scientist to know that the level of murder in SA is alarming and unacceptable. I propose a middle ground. For a clear-cut murder in which there is absolutely no question of who committed murder, CP should be automatic; where the evidence is not conclusive, life imprisonment should imposed. The other moral/ justice question is why, for example, taxpayers should pay money for these murderers to spend the rest of their lives in prison, when there are innocent, law-abiding citizens who go hungry each day. Some maintain that it costs more rands to prosecute criminals than to give them life; in my proposal this argument does not hold. Mojalefa J Khechane Pittsburgh, USA (source: Opinion, thestar.co.za)
