Sociological Perspectives on the Death Penalty - Essay Example

Sociological Perspectives on the Death Penalty Section Number of Sociological Perspectives on the Death Penalty The death sentence is something that challenges the very foundation of human existence. Perhaps nothing else affects human sense and sensibility as much as the institutionalized and legitimized act of taking a human life does. The issue divides the world into two conflicting blocks – one passionately in support and the other equally passionately against this extreme measure of censure in human history. Forty-seven percent Americans support the death penalty, while 48% would rather prefer life without payrole (Death Penalty Information Centre, 2007). Practical, logical and convincing arguments are forwarded both in support and against capital punishment. Those who are against the death penalty believe that this extreme measure is primarily a means for the powerful to gain absolute control over the powerless. They are of the opinion that the death penalty has minimum deterrent effect, violates the most fundamental of human rights, i.e. the right to life, is completely out of sync with civilized society and should be abolished outright and forthwith. Those who support the death penalty, on the other hand, do so because they hold that it acts as a major deterrent to heinous crimes, crimes committed by criminals who, according to them, not only do not deserve a place in society, but also lose the right to life. They have to die so that any chance of them repeating their crime and adding others to their list of victims is eliminated forever. The state, it is reasoned, takes the life to accord protection to future victims of the convicted. The Sociological Approach The death penalty could however have multiple dimensions when viewed through the lens of different sociological perspectives. The constructivist paradigm of sociology tires to understand society from the perspective of those who are actually members of the society. “Proponents of these persuasions (constructivist, interpretivist) share the goal of understanding the complex world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it…The world of lived reality and situation-specific meanings that constitute the general object of investigation is thought to be constructed by social actors. That is, particular actors, in particular places, at particular times, fashion meaning out of events and phenomena through prolonged, complex processes of social interaction involving history, language, and action” (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). This paradigm therefore views knowledge as a construct of the human mind, and is largely dependant on those who hold the knowledge. Knowledge is therefore more subjective than objective; and interpretation and meaning is derived from the interaction between those who receive the knowledge and those who offer the knowledge as the collective truth. The Constructivist paradigm incorporates three major theoretical positions in sociology which have been traditionally applied in the evaluation of deviance – social conflict, structural-functionalism and symbolic interaction. The Social Conflict Perspective The social conflict theory holds that there is a perpetual struggle within groups in a society to gain control of valuable resources (Macionis, 1999). This position has been extended to include other social commodities, such as the power to make, define, and enforce criminal laws (Phillips, 1986). This in turn leads straight to the conflict model of law making within the criminological conflict theory which postulates that specific groups of individuals who hold power in society frames the laws to serve their own self interests and not for the interest of the society at large. Viewed from such a perspective, the death penalty also becomes a tool for “the people who possess the power … to keep the powerless at a disadvantage” (Adler, et al. 2001). This particular view of the death penalty could explain why the sanction has been discriminatory in nature throughout most of its history. In the United States, particularly in the South, the death penalty has been historically used more as a mode of social control with respect to minorities (Bedau, 1997). In the political context, the death penalty has often been used to eliminate opponents and suppress popular uprisings. Here, the question of fairness in making the judgment becomes a very subjective one. What is punishable by death for one political regime could very well be deemed a heroic act of valor for another. The labeling of the act therefore depends very much on the actors and the circumstances and the environment in which they operate. That is the reason why people who are executed are often subsequently turned into martyrs. It happened in Hitler’s Germany, in India and in South Africa. It is happening in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Serbia and in many other places wherever two groups of people look at the world with conflicting perspectives. Take the example of Saddam Hussien. Richard Dicker’s, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program, was a rational voice when he said , “Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can’t justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment.” (Human Rights Watch, 2006) A November 2006 report by Human Rights Watch pointed out numerous serious flaws in the trial of Saddam Hussein. Among other defects, the report found that Iraqi government actions had all along undermined the Iraqi High Tribunal and threatened its independence and perceived impartiality. Handing Saddam Hussein the death penalty has been viewed by a large section of the world as a measure made necessary by the prevailing political and military situation rather than a quest for justice. There is also a very strong view in the United States that the application of the death sentence is racially discriminatory. Studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between race and death penalty in all the states that where the death penalty is still active. The Capital Punishment Project (2007) reports that 96% of the studies found a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination. Of those executed since 1976, approximately 35% have been black, even though blacks constitute only 12% of the population. It has been found that the odds of receiving a death sentence are almost four times higher if the defendant is black. The Amnesty International (2003) has also asserted that races does have an impact on capital punishment, and that the judicial system of the United States have been able to do precious little about it. Amnesty International has attributed this failure of the courts and legislatures of the USA to act decisively at the face of evidence that race has an impact on the death sentence to a collective ‘blind faith’ that America will never waver on the ‘non-negotiable’ demands of human dignity including ‘equal justice.’ Other Perspectives The social perspective of functionalism could be applied to state-sanctioned death or the death penalty as a means by which society consolidates the power of the state, and functions to maintain a sense of social cohesion with regard to marginalizing the criminal element (Johnson, 1998). However, the death penalty can also be viewed as a collective deviant behavior. Capital punishment is an institutionalized form of violence even though the entire community in the name of which it is carried out may not be directly involved in the execution. “Capital punishment is institutionalized ritual murder inflicted by the state upon the condemned… Capital punishment reflects the larger society in which it exists. Since it is a form of violent death, it is apt to be found in societies where forms of violence are institutionalized.” (Charmaz, 1980) The position of structural functionalism on the death penalty can therefore be interpreted in opposing directions. On one hand, the death penalty is viewed as an instrument for promoting social cohesion, while on the other, it is said to reflect the inherent institutionalized violence in the society in which it is given sanction or practiced. Putting theory to practice, the structural functionalism would imply that the death penalty would act as a strong deterrent to crimes similar to those committed by the condemned. The history of the death penalty in the United States however does not practically support this hypothesis. The south accounts for 80% of the total executions in the United States but has the highest murder rate; whereas the northeast has less than 1% of all executions as well as the lowest murder rate in the country (Death Penalty Information Centre, 2007). In 2000, the New York Times conducted an analysis in which it found that states of the US in which the death penalty had not been abolished had a 48% to 101% higher homicide rate than states without the death penalty (John Howard Society of Ontario, 2001). This goes a long way in negating much of the stand of structural functionalism on the death penalty vis-à-vis the society. Figures from other countries also corroborate the fact that the death penalty does not actually result in a decrease in murder rates. In Canada, the death penalty was abolished in 1976. The homicide rate in the country started declining since 1975, and in 1999 the homicide rate was the lowest since 1967. In the United States top criminologists have rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The Amnesty International also could not find any conclusive evidence that could establish the fact that the death penalty has any unique capacity to deter others from committing similar crimes. In 1998 conducted a survey of research findings on the relationship between the death penalty and homicide rates, and updated the survey again in 2002. Based on the findings of the survey, the Amnesty International concluded that it was “not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment.” (Hood, 2002, pp. 230) Interactionism or Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective that considers human life and interaction as a theatrical performance or play (Goffman, 1959). Everyday life is compared to the theatre that relies on the structure of social settings, rules and expectations. Social norms or expected rules of behavior are considered to be fluid and can change with changing times. What was once considered a perfectly acceptable behavior could with changing expectations be considered a deviant behavior. This can be said to have happened with the death penalty. As the world became more civilized and aware of human rights, capital punishment came to be more and more considered as a barbaric form of retribution based on the primitive principle of lex talionis or ‘eye-for-an-eye.’ Things are slowly turning around. The world at large now considers the death penalty is an unacceptable proposition. Two-thirds of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. The United Nations itself is in favour of abolition. References Adler, F., M., Gerhard O., W., and Laufer, W., S., 2001, Criminology. (4th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Amnesty International, 2003, United States of America, Death by discrimination - the continuing role of race in capital cases,.Library, Online Documentation Archive. [Online] Available. [August 9, 2008] Bedau, H., 1997, The death penalty in America: Current controversies. New York: Oxford University Press. Capital Punishment Project, 2003, The High Costs of the Death Penalty. American Civil Liberties Union. Capital Punishment Project, 2007, Race and the Death Penalty, American Civil Liberties Union, [Online] Available < http://www.aclu.org/death-penalty > [February 28, 2008] Charmaz, K., 1980, The social reality of death: Death in contemporary America. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Death Penalty Information Centre, 2007, Facts about the Death Penalty, [Online] Available < http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf > [August 10, 2008] Denzin, N., K., & Lincoln, Y., S., (Eds.), 1994, Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications. Goffman, E., 1959, The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, New York: Anch,or Books. Hood, R., 2002, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective,. Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition. Human Rights Watch, 2006, Iraq: Saddam Hussein put to Death. Hanging after flawed trial undermines the rule of law. Human Rights News. [Online] Available < http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/12/30/iraq14950.htm > [August 10, 2008] John Howard Society of Ontario, 2001, The Death Penalty: Any Nation’s Shame, John Howard Society of Ontario publication. [Online] Available < www.johnhowardphd.ca/PDFs/Fact%20Sheets/death%20penalty.pdf > [August 9, 2008] Johnson, R., 1998, Deathwork: A study of the modern execution process (2nd ed.). Belmont, California: West/Wadsworth. Macionis, J., J., 1999. Sociology (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Phillips, C., D., 1987, Exploring relations among forms of social control: The lynching and execution of blacks in North Carolina, 1889-1918. Law and Society Review, 21 (3), 361-374. Read More