Killing One To Save Many
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted Monday, June 11, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Capital Punishment: The debate's over. The data are in. The answer is conclusive. No, we're not talking about global warming. We're talking about the death penalty. Say what you will, it saves far more lives than it takes
Even the mainstream media, loath for decades to treat the topic with any seriousness, are grudgingly coming around to the same conclusion. A good example is a piece this week by Associated Press correspondent Robert Tanner. In it, he notes a spate of recent studies that "count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer."
This is, of course, correct. It's also nothing new. We credit Tanner for his gutsy piece. But we've noted on these pages for years the stunning number of studies, all pointing to the same conclusion: The death penalty saves lives, perhaps hundreds if not thousands a year. The data are overwhelming.
A look at the chart on the right shows, in crude form, how the resumption of the death penalty in the early 1980s led to a steep decline in the murder rate. Murder rates peaked at about 10.2 per 100,000 people in 1980 and plunged 45% to about 5.6 in 2005.
Unfortunately, death penalty opponents are quite clever. They know they can humanize a man — and yes, it's almost always a man — on death row, talking about his underprivileged background, the abuse he suffered as a child, his low intelligence or his failure to get any breaks in life, as excuses to keep him alive. Or, they find fixable flaws in the system and turn them into arguments for scrapping the death penalty deterrent entirely.
Thus the Los Angeles Times carried on page 1 Monday an article titled: "IQ debate unsettled in death penalty cases." Are they implying that only the intelligent are capable of moral choice?
Meanwhile, another news item carried by the wire service Agence France-Presse notes that support for the death penalty seems to be "declining." Really? Some 62% say they support it — and that's within the margin of error for the 64% to 66% support the death penalty has garnered over the past six years.
We wonder if our friends in the media will give Tanner's far more significant piece showing that the death penalty saves lives equal play. Frankly, we doubt it.
It's sad that, in most accounts of the death penalty's supposed deficiencies, the one thing missing is the victim. People die horrific deaths at the hands of these monsters, and in the end our sympathy goes to . . . the monster.
Remember the flap in California over the 2005 execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams? He was a thug, an "O.G." — Original Gangster. He co-founded the murderous Crips street gang.
In 1979, Williams murdered a 7/11 clerk during a robbery. Just two weeks later, he murdered a Taiwan immigrant family that ran a small motel, using a sawed off shotgun in both crimes. If you have the stomach, you can find pictures of his victims on the Internet. Their deaths weren't quick or painless. And Tookie took the time to taunt some of his victims before finishing them off.
You might think there'd be outrage that he had managed to cheat the gallows for 21 years. But you'd be wrong. Tookie was lionized, and a highly coordinated PR campaign was launched on his behalf. Jesse Jackson, Bianca Jagger and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu all weighed in with words of support. Williams was even nominated for a Nobel Peace prize, and had his life story told in the movie "Redemption."
Fortunately, in the end, Williams got his due. And his execution no doubt saved many innocent lives.
The fact is, there are few remaining reasons for spurning the death penalty. Even today, as the U.S. curbs the use of executions, a number of European nations are thinking about bringing it back. They're tired of the terrorists, child predators and serial murderers who have increased in number and even thrived under Europe's therapeutic, non-punitive welfare state.
The death penalty saves lives. We should keep it.
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