Various iterations of this comment came thick and fast when Amnesty began calling for the clemency of Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, currently on death row in Bali for drug offences. Ironically, with the death penalty, we are not talking about time, we are talking about the opposite.
Both men acknowledge their crimes and recognise that they must face punishment. But a death sentence deprives people of the opportunity to reform. Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan are great examples of reform, one running art classes and the other studying to be a pastor. Their reform has come so far that a former governor of Kerobokan prison has argued they shouldn’t be executed.
Many others who languish on death row across the world have acknowledged their crime and reformed. There is no benefit to the state in killing these people, a senseless deprivation of life.
The immediate counter argument is that the threat of death forces people to reform. Again, the evidence for this simply isn’t conclusive.
Criminal justice systems the world over have had great success of reform without the threat of death, and often due to programs that focus on offender rehabilitation.
