This past year has been troublesome for me personally so I have not written much here even though my plan was to constantly highlight social justice matters. I am going through old boxes to downsize and organize and part of what I find is that for decades I have argued to abolish the death penalty. For a brief time in the U.S., the death penalty was found to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, but it revived itself fairly quickly.

For so many reasons, this is not the answer to the crime problem. First, research shows it does not result in reduced crime. In fact, some research suggests that crime increases when government condones death as a remedy to a problem. Next, while victims’ families and friends may be satisfied by vengeance, in the end their loss is still tragic and does not end. Instead, another family suffers the same consequence. Third, it costs millions above and beyond costs of imprisonment to incarcerate on death row and for all of the appeals. Fourth, can’t society learn from those on death row in order to understand those who commit capital offenses – and move toward prevention? And most significant to me, the death penalty primarily affects the poor and people of color. This type of lawful discrimination is unconscionable.

It’s not just me. Here are other thoughts. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/01/03/what-to-know-about-the-death-penalty-in-2018

WHAT DO YOU THINK?