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Kenya: Abolish Death Penalty/News
From a moralistic point of view, the reasons advanced by those who call for the retention of the death penalty in our statutes make plenty of sense. After all, if you take a human life, you ought to suffer the same fate. But from a practical point of view, capital punishment has never been a deterrent, nor has it, especially in the Kenyan experience, ever been carried out since 1982 after the abortive coup attempt.
Why then should the courts keep prescribing the death penalty if the sentence is not likely to be carried out? Because, the answer must be, it is in our laws, and only our presidents have been reluctant to endorse its implementation.
It has been demonstrated the world over that the deterrence value of the death penalty is much overrated. In Kenya, it has not stopped murder - indeed, the rate has been going up by leaps and bounds - nor has it discouraged violent robbery.
It is not the intention of this column to encourage violent crime. But we do support the action by President Kibaki to commute the sentences of 4,000 inmates languishing on death-row without hope that anyone will bring to a closure their sordid lives.
More so, we support the sentiment underlying it. In many parts of the civilised world, capital sentence has been abolished as a barbaric form of retributive justice. By all means, let us have a national debate on the issue, but only with the aim of doing away with the death penalty.
Allafrica
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