Young Writers Society

* This is a novel still in production. I have left out some parts that I prefer not to share because they are still unfinished, and others for copyright purposes. If you feel as though I have left something out, don't worry - I haven't - I lack the space to write everything, and I have done 5 extensive years of research on this novel. I haven't left anything out of the real novel. There are hundreds more pages, facts, charts and photos that I will be unable to share with you.

Introduction

When I asked my forty-five-year-old mother what her view on the death penalty was, I laughed at her reply. Though some people may find little humour in a cold, heartless response such as the one I received from my mother, I happen to find humour. My mother told me that if I were to kill someone, she would gladly see me hanged. Most people would argue that if this were to happen, my mother would most certainly change her position. Honestly, I don’t think she would, except in an extenuating circumstance; for example, if I killed someone out of self defence I doubt she would want to see me die for saving my own life, that would be pretty contradictory. However, if I were to kill a little child, or a woman taking her morning run, or if I were to cut up people and eat their flesh … I would hope that my mother would want to rid society of my despicable crimes. The last thing anyone wants is to lose faith in humanity, and if you lose faith in your own kin you’ve little faith in anything else. In my years as an historical student and advocate of capital punishment, I have never been able to witness the use of the death penalty other than in fictional movies such as The Green Mile, Ted Bundy and possibly a few others that I cannot recollect at this time. So, why is this? Why have I, like so many others, been deprived the choice of life or death for my country’s criminals, let alone the criminals of my province? Why do I not get the privilege of being free from harm when deranged psychopaths break free from prison and kill innocent people in my neighbourhood, or hold up a grocery store a few towns away and kill an innocent clerk? Because, my friends, I live in Canada and in Canada we are simply “too nice” and “too moralistic” to sentence the most heinous members of society to the punishment that they have sentenced their victims to. With all the wonders of such an immensely great and free country, Canadian citizens are deprived of their right to equal restitution for their dead. By no means am I deducing that Canada is not a country worth living in, as I would not choose to live in The United States just for the benefit of their death penalty in some states.

My infatuation with the death penalty began in my grade twelve Canadian Law class; we were given topics to choose from to do our independent study project, and I chose the topic of reinstating the death penalty in Canada. I did not choose the topic because I believed in it, or even because I knew anything about it; I chose the topic because it was interesting, and I knew that the internet and library books would be swimming with information on the death penalty, so the assignment would be an easy feat. I also knew that it would be a controversial topic, one that might spark an interesting discussion and prompt my teacher to give me a good mark on my dutiful research. Upon doing my research, I found several interesting facts that encouraged me to become an advocate for the death penalty reinstatement. Though I cannot straightforwardly recall my mark on the essay or on the presentation, they were both above a ninety, and I was praised for having done such a thorough and comprehensive amount of research. If I do recall correctly, my presentation even sparked a debate amongst my peers which consisted of heated yelling at me and at each other. It was exciting. For a group of teenagers who had never done their research on the death penalty, they sure had a lot to say on the topic, opening their mouths and shouting “facts” that weren’t really facts. So why do people get excited about the death penalty, either for or against it? Perhaps because our current society, save from those born prior to 1970, has never known the brutality it consists of or what it means to take someone’s life as prescribed by law. That answer, I am not sure of. But what I do know is that providing information on the death penalty is the best weapon that I have in encouraging its reinstatement, in hopes of converting my fellow Canadians. I know for a fact, from a compilation of evidence, that reinstating capital punishment is absolutely necessary for the protection and preservation of human rights. My hope is that before my life ends I will see the return of capital punishment to Canada.

Crime

In Canada, as in many other countries, the crimes rates are steadily increasing and rarely declining. In 2009 Maclean’s published statistics: out of 100 of Canada’s cities, my small town of 110,000 people called Thunder Bay, ranked 34th most dangerous city for murder. The most dangerous cities for sexual assault saw a drastic change, as Thunder Bay ranked 5th most dangerous city in Canada. And finally, not surprisingly, for aggravated assault, my wholesome little town ranked 6th most dangerous out of Canada . While some may see this in a more positive light, that there are four worse cities than Thunder Bay in sexual assault and five worse cities than Thunder Bay in aggravated assault, these statistics are nothing to be proud of and Canada should not take these statistics lightly. The fact of the matter is: crime is being taken far too lightly in Canada; people commit crimes of murder and assault every day in Canada and live to gather fame as a result. These people are taking advantage of our justice system and need to be made an example of. Louis Moonias in 2008 beat and killed a 62 year old man, Ellen Gibson and Donna Butera assaulted the elderly at a Long-Term Care facility just west of Thunder Bay, and a 20 year old man sexually assaulted a 14 year old girl who then committed suicide as a result. More recently in the news, there have been several murders in my city – some crimes of passion, others premeditated. The victims are given such little fame, their lives hardly touched on and the sadness of the fact that these innocent people had their lives stolen from them for no reason, yet the criminals themselves are alive and well, getting publicity. While you may think some murderers and rapists and abusers are ashamed and want to hide their face, many of them are honoured to have their face on television and their name being well-known. For some, it is their ultimate goal. People know who they are; they will be forever immortalized in newspapers and books, and live to gain the praise. That is why I urge the death penalty for heinous crimes like murder.

So, crime in Canada is much higher than many people would presume. Because Canada does not possess the death penalty, to what can abolitionists attribute our high crime rates to, if not blaming it on capital punishment and its anti-deterrence? As I stated before, countries and states that have high crime rates enforce the death penalty to combat it, they don’t have high crime rates because of capital punishment. That is absurd.

The Justice System in Canada

Much research into the deterrence of sentencing in the Canadian justice system has been focused on whether or not our punishments actually do deter crime. If sentencing were all the same for particular crimes and not more lenient for others people would have the knowledge of the possible punishment and there would therefore be a deterrent effect. However, much of the judgement is left up to the judge and the jury and the way that they feel toward the case, leaving room for interpretation and judgement, as well as the fact that all cases should not be treated equally.

My biggest issue with the justice system today – not only in Canada – is the insanity plea or mental disorder defence. This is probably the most hindering law implemented as a result of a desire not to execute people with a mental incapability or with physical or mental disabilities in which the criminal would not be in a proper mindset when committing a crime. The reason why I am predominantly against this defence is because people who are not mentally incapable have used this defence – and have been given a much more lenient sentence as a result. If you ask me, it’s absurd; my arguments here may be controversial, but the deductions have been made after careful research as well as after having watched many cases in which a clearly sane and coherent person was institutionalized rather than imprisoned or sentenced to death because of such an insanity defence. http://www.bastionlaw.ca/-insanity.asp

For many governments, the imprisonment of criminals is not implemented to keep criminals out of society, but instead their goals are to rehabilitate them and reintegrate them back into the society that doesn’t want them. I completely understand the logic for this: Canada and the United States both want to rehabilitate the criminals and send them back out into society so that they are not a hindrance on tax payer’s dollars, but instead are contributing to society. This, to me, is a rather disputable effort. While the efforts of prisons to rehabilitate possesses positive intentions, the fact remains that “the prison system is not rehabilitating the majority of inmates because the majority of inmates are leaving the prison system better criminals than they were entering the prison system” meaning that the turn-around rate of people returning to crime, dangerous or otherwise, is just as high if not higher than the crime rates from people entering the prison. Thus, is the prison system really a deterrent on crime? Those who return from prison back into society are just as likely, if not more so, to return to the same or worse crimes. Those who are sentenced to death and their punishment is carried out, can never commit any crimes. This was not only true in the early 1920s, but in 2007 the United States Department of Justice compiled statistics stating that “Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime” . So, if these statistics are telling us anything, they are telling us not only that the prison system really sucks at rehabilitating its prisoners, but they are also telling us that prison systems leave us with more intelligent and craft criminals than when they entered the prison system. So, prisons, though they claim to be a higher deterrent, are actually turning around and doing the opposite. The only argument I have for this is that capital punishment makes its promise that the criminals cannot reoffend, and it keeps that promise.

There is also some concern about the media’s impact on the deterrence of sentencing; the media may “undercut the deterrent impact of the law by focusing on sentences that are lenient rather than severe” . This means that by the media focusing all of its attention, be it negative or not, on the lesser sentences for such heinous crimes, the viewers get the impression that the justice system in Canada is a joke. It was proven in a 1983 study that “79.5% of Canadians believed that sentences in [Canadian] criminal courts were ‘too mild’” and studies today will show that people feel the same way (see graphs on page _____). While many people may not outright favour capital punishment, they favour justice. I know personally, when watching Jeffrey Dahmer’s court trial many people shouted out loud at the television their dismay. People want justice, and most people who witness the sentencing of murderers in Canada will agree that the sentencing is unjust. Most of the time, the people who find Canada’s sentencing to be too mild are people who do not support the death penalty; even the people who don’t support the death penalty are not satisfied with the justice that is being served.

The Prison System in Canada

Canada may be a free and democratic country, but our prison systems are a joke. Do the words conjugal visit mean anything to you? They mean a lot to our prisoners, apparently! There is something bothersome about the fact that our prisoners are allowed time to procreate on our tax dollars that upsets me, and should upset all Canadians! Why, if we must imprison our murderers, allow them conjugal visits for several hours with their wives? Sex should be the last thing in the world that murderers and rapists get to think about.

I’ve heard in the news lately that the prison review panel is considering ending statutory release, in which a prisoner is released on parole for the last third of their sentence in order to help with the prisoner’s reintegration into society; what does that mean, that the prisoners will be released in the last quarter of their prison sentence instead of the last third, or will Canada actually step up and make the prisoners do their time sentenced? Nowadays, activists find something ridiculous to complain about and they blow it totally out of proportion; now people are concerned with solitary confinement of prisoners, and the fact that they believe it is not fair and threatens the well-being of the prisoners in question. Are we kidding? Are we really worried about the well-being of a prisoner who abducted a little girl from the playground, raped and tortured her later and then buried her alive where her family may never find her again for peace or closure?

Another thing that irks me about the prison system in Canada, and in any country for that matter, is the privileges of these criminals! These murderers and rapists have more advantages in life than I had, which is a horribly sad story for me to have to admit to. Nico Claux, the “Vampire of Paris” stated specifically, “For two years I studied computer programming at the state's expense, but in reality, I spent more time in the gym, paint room and recreation yard than I did in the class rooms. I had started painting in 1997, and soon learned that I had a natural talent. I was also part of the prison's video team, where I learned filming and editing with DV camcorders. We would film concerts, football games, and boxing fights” . The fact that Claux was allowed to study at the state’s expense is something that should bother all university and college students as much as it bothers me – why do I have to be over thirty thousand dollars in debt upon leaving university when this bastard gets to study computer programming while in jail – free of charge?

The point is, people are placing far too much emphasis on little things; what are these activists suggesting? If prison is not fair for criminals of murder, then what is? What exactly are these people suggesting? I cannot fathom what type of punishment activists are hoping for when they think that prison is unfair.

The Bible

Though I do firmly believe that the Bible advocates the death penalty due to its many verses that blatantly state that one should be punished proportionate to one’s actions, I do not feel as though I have enough religious experiences to dedicate a section of my book arguing coherently that the Bible encourages capital punishment.

There are many verses in the Bible that support the death penalty, or seemingly do, and many that refute it – or seem to. The point is that what the Bible says does not dictate our laws; while living by the rules of the Bible are honourable things to do, our laws are not derived from the Bible, at least not wholeheartedly. This means that outside of the Bible, outside of religion, we need to contemplate as a society, as a country, if the death penalty is right for us. Certain religions, if not most of them, do not condone capital punishment; for example, the Roman Catholic Church is pro-capital punishment (as to say that the Church supports the principle that the state possesses the right to execute its criminals who threaten innocent lives and societal harmony) despite the fact that the leader of the church, the late Pope John Paul II, the current Pope Benedict XVI – and even Mother Teresa – are against capital punishment . Even though they oppose capital punishment, they do not deny the fact that a government has the right to use capital punishment to protect its citizens – and they would never choose to disagree with the fact that the state is given rights by God to defend itself and its citizens from an attacker, by force if necessary. My husband is a Roman Catholic, but he advocates the death penalty. I am an un-baptized Christian and I advocate the death penalty. My religion aids in my faith, and guides some of my lively morals, but it does not dictate my life – and even Catholics who parallel the religion to every word can take the Bible and interpret it in their own way. I cannot say for sure that there are no Buddhists who support the death penalty, or that only Agnostics or Atheists support the death penalty – because that is a crude generalization – there are Agnostics and Atheists that support it, and there are some that don’t. There is no way to deduce who believes what and why, and if it has anything to do with their religion. In my opinion, the justice system in Canada should remain free from religion, because there is no one religion that is acceptable, although some argue there are. When arguing the death penalty, religion needs to be left out. It can both help and hinder one’s argument, but that is not what religion is intended for and I find it to be a weak argument at best.

Every Christian, every Catholic, every Protestant, every believer will inevitably interpret the Bible in a different way than the next so I will therefore simply state that I believe that the Bible advocates the death penalty for heinous crimes, although it is hard to overlook the passages that condemn the act of capital punishment. Take the Bible as you will, and interpret it how you please. That is your right.

Criminals

Even though not all societal members agree with capital punishment, we all have the death penalty to thank for eliminating some of society’s most heinous criminals who committed society’s most heinous crimes. Say that capital punishment is wrong all that you will, but I know that everyone is glad that some of the modern and past murderers are no longer alive thanks to the death penalty. However, I find it beneficial to remind people why unlawful murder is wrong, and that these criminals should be made an example of before they make an example of us. Now, not all of these criminals have been condemned to death, though some may have died in prison over time, but the point is that all of these criminals and psychopaths should have been sentenced to death, because in some cases, they escaped and killed again.

Charles Ng (left) and Leonard Lake (right)

Now here are a couple of real horrifying people that quickly became my favourite reason for the reinstatement of the death penalty. The Asian man to the left is Charles Ng (pronounced ing) and to the right is a picture of his Caucasian companion, a Mr. Leonard Lake though he has been predominantly known under multiple pseudonyms stolen from his victims and derived from his own imagination. Recently I have read a book that discusses the upbringings of these two individuals and that divulges serious information of the murders and acts that these two performed. Ng is a creepy individual mostly because he is quiet and mysterious; Lake was the real mastermind behind the murders, though Ng should nonetheless still be hated for his actions. Lake, several years prior to meeting Ng had decided and recorded in his diary that he wanted a slave woman, a woman to do everything he told her to do, a woman that he could hold captive in a bunker that he was building. Aside from killing women who had a sexual purpose to serve for him, Lake also killed small children, and people for their vehicles and money; even still, Lake admits to having been attracted to girls as young as twelve, continuously referring to them as “jail-bait” (reference from the book I am reading). Lake spent most of his time videotaping women while they changed and persuading them with drugs and massages to pose nude for him. Right from the get-go, you get a really creepy vibe from this guy; he’s not just your everyday pervert! Lake and Ng go on to imprison several women, though they are nice enough to give the women they imprison some options: the women can either submit to the men’s wants and desires fully and probably live or they can refuse and be raped, beaten and killed anyway. Wow, how to choose? These women were given no option except an extended life – as if Lake would actually let a woman go after beating her and forcing her to have sex with him and Ng on countless occasions. A forensic psychiatrist, Michael Stone, rated Leonard Lake on his Most Evil scale at a twenty-two, the highest amount of measurable evil. Regardless, though the criminal justice system did not get the pleasure of enforcing the death penalty on Lake, as he killed himself in prison, Ng was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Members of the victims’ families applauded the judge’s verdict to sentence him to death. That applause is the sound of justice.

Bar-Jonah at his trial

Next we have ourselves a regular Hannibal Lecter. This worthless pile’s name is Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a cannibalistic pedophile who lured young boys into his sadistic fantasies by lying about being a police officer. And, like his well-known counterpart Doctor Lecter, Bar-Jonah fed the remains of his 10-year-old male victim to his unknowing house guests with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Okay, I made that last part up, but he really did serve the remains of his victim to his friends and neighbours, notably writing down things in his letters like “little boy stew” and “little boy pot pies”. Wonderful. For whatever sadistic reason this woman had, the little boy’s mother refused to believe that this known sexual deviant had killed her son, and Bar-Jonah’s charges were dropped in this case. Thank the good Lord someone else had a good sense of mind, and Bar-Jonah is at least serving a 130-year life sentence on other charges, rather than roaming our friendly streets. Even still, Bar-Jonah should have been sentenced to death.

Dahmer’s mug shot

Of course, no sadistic murderer list would be complete without the ever-famous Jeffrey Dahmer. Like many of the other murderers on my list, Dahmer took part in cannibalism – probably the most horrific act usually paralleling itself with murder. Like Ted Bundy, Dahmer was quite handsome – quite the average human being for his time, and likely very charming. Again, this is rare in serial killers, and is potentially what made Dahmer so successful. One of Dahmer’s victims, a boy named Konerak almost escaped Dahmer’s home; Dahmer had drugged the boy, so he was rather incoherent, but he still managed to get out. When the police arrived after some passersby had called them, Dahmer arrived and simply told them that Konerak was his nineteen-year-old lover who was drunk and a little disoriented. Without any investigation into the incident, the police returned Konerak to Dahmer’s home and left him there. Ignoring the obvious sign of panic from the boy is one thing, but the police officers also failed to realize that there was a decomposing body in the home, though they had admittedly sensed a foul smell. The police officers failed in justice as they did not run a background check off of the ID that Dahmer provided them with, because if they had they would have found that Dahmer was a convicted child molester who was still on probation – and in turn would have searched his home, saved the life on Konerak, and discovered the decomposing body in the other room. I will overlook the fact that Dahmer was a child molester on probation - what a comforting feeling, right? Regardless, as a lack of action the boy, Konerak, was strangled to death, and his corpse was raped. Dahmer would later admit that he performed oral sex on most, if not all, of his dead victims. Once Dahmer was caught from another victim’s escape, the police found severed heads in his freezer and refrigerator as well as skulls and penises in his closet. Dahmer even admitted to eating human flesh, freezing it and adding spices and meat tenderizers to it because it gave him an erection. Of course, another insanity plea was present – there seems to be a pattern here of murderers pleading insanity – the insanity plea should be a moot point, as insanity is a must for all murderers. One would have to be insane to kill, let alone eat and desecrate one’s victims. A man on work duty in prison with Dahmer ended up killing Dahmer for his incessant murder of black men not long after his incarceration. If one were ever to doubt their belief in capital punishment, go online and find a video on the history channel about Jeffrey Dahmer; it will not only give you nightmares, terrify you and make you cry but it will confirm in your heart for years to come that capital punishment is absolutely necessary for the elimination of criminals and dangerous as Dahmer.

Fish

To follow the pattern of Jeffrey Dahmer, let’s now move onto Albert Fish, thought to be a much more sadistic criminalist than Dahmer. He’s creepy, right? Well, wait until you hear what this man did before you decide how creepy he really is. Fish seemed like a normal person (there seems to be a pattern of normal people committing murders, yet they all claim to have been insane at the time), marrying for twenty years and fathering several children; however, when his wife left him Fish began to lead a life of cannibalism and became a sexual predator and a sado-masochistic torturer. Aside from the odd things that he had his children do to him, Fish abducted a small girl. Well, I shouldn’t say abducted – as Fish was seemingly normal the family of little Grace Budd willingly allowed their young daughter to go with him to a child’s birthday party. Long after the young girl’s disappearance and after countless efforts to track this man down by his false name, Fish wrote Grace’s family a letter, claiming to have cut young Grace into small pieces and then eaten her over a course of nine days. As I have discussed before, Fish relished in his own notoriety for being a renowned sadist – Fish was given all the publicity he wanted – his face was in all of the newspapers. What more could he ask for? After being arrested, Fish was x-rayed and found to have shoved at least twenty seven needles up into his pelvic region for sexual pleasure, and left them lodged there; this was only one of his disturbing, sado-masochistic pleasures, another being his fetish with human excrement. This guy had some really peculiar fantasies that he fulfilled through abducting young children. Fish is constantly described as being psychotic, and thus not capable of understanding the severity of his crimes, although prior to all of the murders Fish was examined on multiple occasions and deemed to be a disturbed man, though he was certainly not insane . Of course, after the murders the psychiatrists deemed him to be insane – whether this was due to their repulsion at his crimes, or if he really was insane, I don’t know. Thankfully, the jury did not care whether or not he was sane or insane – they realized that he was dangerous, and they wanted to see this criminal put to death and society to be free from his atrocious crimes. And Fish, sadistic as he was, was more than pleased to be sentenced to death by the electric chair. It was his biggest fantasy. Regardless, I am glad that capital punishment is responsible for ridding society of this criminal.

Claux upon arrest

Next is a criminal who sparked my interest while studying the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer. This criminal’s name is Nico Claux. This man was a French cannibal and killer; when caught for the murder of another Frenchman, police investigators found inside his home vertebras and leg bones hung from the ceiling like a child’s mobile, human teeth scattered around, and stolen blood bags, among other disturbing things. Claux had admittedly robbed graves and mutilated the remains of the dead and then stolen bags of blood from his work at a hospital because he enjoyed drinking it. While working in a morgue for several years, Claux also admitted that, when left alone to stitch up the bodies, he would cut strips of flesh off of the bodies and eat them. In 1997 Claux was sentenced to twelve years in prison; after serving only seven of those twelve years, Claux was released in 2002. Regardless of the fact that Claux has not knowingly killed or eaten anyone since then, releasing him into public – especially prematurely – is not a choice I would have wisely made. Google Nicolas Claux and if you can find his official website dedicated to his artwork, you will find paintings of Albert Fish, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer as well as the infamous Charles Manson – now why would a known killer be interested in painting these particular individuals if his past was behind him? Does he idolize them? Who, in their right mind, would idolize people like them?

Whenever I find myself doubting my capital punishment views for whatever reason (be it the constant hatred for those who approve of it or be it a lack of support and the possibility of it never being reinstated in Canada) I simply choose to go through my favourite chapter of the benefits of capital punishment and take a look at all of the sadists, murderers, cannibals and necrophiliac rapists and remind myself why I would rather support the dead, support those who can’t tell us the horrific story of how they died, rather than find myself supporting the bastard who had the nerve to kill an innocent person. There are far too many victims and perpetrators of hateful murders in this world to name in one book, far too many for me to research and far too many for one person to handle having to hear about in a lifetime. I have done my best to show my readers examples of horrible criminals, but one must remember that there are many more criminals out there, some much more heinous and unspeakable than the ones that I have mentioned.

Arguments against the Use of the Death Penalty

Of course, as with any controversial topic, there are debates. The death penalty, among abortion and other things like stem cell research, have been among the most controversial and debated topics of my lifetime. Unfortunately, some of the arguments made are not always educated nor do they possess any common sense – but the arguments come from a good place, even if they are misinformed.

One argument against the death penalty is that it does not deter crime. Does not deter crime, ha! Let me ask you this, fellow Canadian (or others who know of Canada’s criminal justice system); what is stopping you from shooting your next door neighbour every time that bastard runs over your garbage can? What is to stop you from killing your wife when you find out she has been cheating on you for half of your marriage? Nothing; not a god damn thing. I am not afraid of prison, I am not afraid of being incarcerated for the rest of my life because I can still live my life, I can still have conjugal visits, I still get to eat and sleep and watch television and exercise on a regular basis. Normal lives are just glorified prisons; I get to have sex with my husband but in my own bed, I get to eat meals but I get to choose them, I get to watch television but I have to pay for it, I get to exercise but half the time I don’t want to. Being in prison takes away so few rights that it should be cruel and unusual punishment to those who have not committed the same crimes as the murderers. Why should the murderers get to eat three meals a day when the people who stole my car stereo get to eat three meals a day? How is that proportional? Being a Canadian at this very moment inevitably means that you will live out the rest of your life, that you will not be put to death by our criminal justice system. Many Americans (because it is so easy to compare us to our sister country) do not have the same comfort; many Americans must think before they murder – do they want to be sentenced to death and never see their mother again? Do they want to be sentenced to death and never get to watch their children grow up? Do they want to be sentenced to death and widow their husband or wife? And don’t tell me that all murderers do not fear death. If that were true, it is a wonder how police officers manage to arrest people without killing them. When a policeman holds a criminal at gunpoint and tells them to get on the ground, the criminal will conform in the vast majority of cases. Why would they do that unless they were afraid and well-informed on the deadly power of the weapon and what being shot may lead to? It is because, regardless of what abolitionists claim, criminals are not immune to fear! It is a common misconception to believe that criminals do not fear force and punishment; while most criminals are, to some extent, mentally insane they are still human and any human with an intact brain logically fears death when faced with it. Fear is an instinct that automatically kicks in when one is faced with lethal force and the use of the death penalty, therefore, has a potentially greater deterrent effect that any other punishment. Studies have specifically shown that with the definite certainty of punishment (no hymning and hawing), crime rates “decline with an increase of the probability of arrest” and thus, if a criminal is well aware of the fact that they will be arrested and sentenced accordingly, they will be less likely to commit that crime . Yes, the death penalty is irrevocable, but by ridding society of its most heinous criminals, others will take heed of the warnings sent by the judges and the juries. Of course there are exceptions, as there are to any rule, but for the few people that slip through the cracks it is worth it to continuously enforce capital punishment. One thing I can surely say that is definite about the death penalty: it prevents repeat offenders, and that is good enough for me.

Another common argument against the death penalty is that it infringes on every person’s right to life. I also believe in The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms it is set out that we are allowed our right to liberty and security of persons, are we not? Well if we are to follow that logic, then we must abolish prisons as a human rights violation, as well, as it violates our right to liberty. How can one be free from captivity if they are confined within prison walls? Or, does that logic only apply to the murderers who hold their prisoners captive, and not our justice system? Why can a murderer deny his victim the right to life, liberty and the security of person when our government does the same to them they are horrible people? And if I really wanted to drag out my argument like abolitionists seem to do, we must also abolish taxes because it violates one’s security of person. Are you secure without money? I’m not. But we’re not stupid enough to believe that those things actually make sense, and we’re not going to implement those changes, are we? No. Why? For one reason, because the people who wrote The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had the moral coherence to distinguish the difference between crime, punishment and what is prescribed by law. Secondly, because The Charter leaves much room for interpretation, and I personally think that people are interpreting their rights in the wrong manner. Of course we all have rights and we all have equal availability to those rights except when in accordance with the law. I do believe that this statement, after our right to life, liberty and the security of person, sums up what I am trying to say: “except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice” . How can one argue that we are taking away a criminal’s rights when this statement so cleverly and so hastily follows our rights? In terms of justice, the government has every right to take the life of a criminal – that is why we have been using it for hundreds of thousands of years.

Another argument against the death penalty that is prominent in activists is the fear of killing an innocent person. Again, ignoring the naivety of the situation at hand, I will humour my readers momentarily. Thirty years ago, DNA evidence was totally inadmissible and unheard of; putting someone to death without hard evidence such as DNA is a seriously controversial action, and thirty years ago I probably would have taken no part in it. The year is two thousand and ten and DNA evidence has been a staple of law enforcement for over twenty years. Yes, since the 70’s there probably have been a couple hundred people released from death row as DNA evidence has proved them innocent – but they were condemned in a time before DNA evidence was invented. It was not DNA evidence that put these people on death row, so why does one condemn DNA as inadmissible in the putting to death of a criminal? Why do people trust DNA evidence to release people from death row, but deem it unreliable in putting people on death row? When people focus on innocent people being executed in modern society, they focus on the execution date and not on the date of the crime. What difference does it make then they were executed? What is important is the year was when this criminal was convicted. An example in history is Jesse Tafero. This man was convicted in 1976 – keeping in mind that DNA profiling didn’t come into effect until at least ten years later, Tafero was executed when DNA evidence was still weak and being perfected. We cannot dismiss the death penalty on the basis that people will be executed when innocent – not if we revise the system! Revise the system so that only indefinite murderers are sentenced to death and spare the lives of those lacking DNA evidence, or at least those lacking a strong case against them. This isn’t rocket science, people! Yes, the truth is, millions of innocent people have been executed over the years – by the government and by civilians and monarchies, dictatorships and so forth – but the point is, that in today’s day and age – in Canada - we have the coherence and technology to ensure that this does not happen. Even still, those couple hundred people that were exonerated from the United States in the last few years only made up a mere 2 or 3 percent of the population on death row. Often times there are murder cases in which DNA evidence is not present, in which case it is up to the lawyers and the criminal investigators to gather all other hard evidence against the person such as motive, relation to victim and so forth. Even still, why not still condemn criminals subject to DNA evidence to death? Why allow them to go free? Why not simply incarcerate those in cases where DNA evidence is not present while we rid our society of the criminals we have proven undeniably are guilty? In conclusion, no, we should not execute people without undeniable DNA evidence as it is far too risky – but we should execute those who are guilty proven by DNA evidence in cases of murder and rape where there is often DNA evidence available. Making this change to the justice system would likely cut the annual incarceration costs in half, and then maybe our countries can spend a little less money on feeding criminals and spend a little more money on helping people who actually need it. I won’t bother spending any time on the fact that certain people, who shall remain nameless, were released from prison as it is a strictly undeterminable fact. The one person I have in mind was released from prison not due to their innocence but due to a lack of evidence in order to convict. That is the sad truth we all must live with, but as I said, I will not delve further into it. That is for another book at another time.

A question concerning the death penalty that is valid yet also moot, is regarding the fairness of the death penalty across racial, social and economic classes. Before I begin the argument, let me say that the majority of prisoners are Caucasian individuals, while they may not make up an entire 50% of the population, the other percentages are made up of ethnic minorities broken down into small groups. So, yes, there are many ethnic prisoners, but each race makes up a minority compared to the Caucasian individuals imprisoned. Despite this fact, there are discrepancies in the numbers of ethnic minorities put to death versus Caucasian individuals put to death, as well as a discrepancy in economic backgrounds. However, these discrepancies are misunderstood. In no way am I deducing that Latinos are more prone to violence than Caucasians are, but the racial and economic segregation can be the cause in some cases of the minorities being in Canadian prisons more so than their white counterparts. What I am getting at is the fact that, if an ethnic group other than Caucasian is being executed on a larger scale, then there is an explanation for it. Criminals are not just sent to death row for nothing – especially in today’s day and age; criminals are sent to death row for only society’s most heinous and repulsive of crimes, and DNA evidence is not discriminatory to race or economic status – the DNA simply states what information it can produce. Some previous politicians have stated some very discriminatory and straightforward comments like “blacks simply [behave] worse than whites and should pay the price” . This is a terrible thing to say and I would never go as far as deducing something like this. However, as I have said before, if there are more minorities committing crimes then there is a much more important reason behind this than meets the eyes. Abolitionists claim that capital punishment is racist, but if a black person kills someone are we just to let it go because of the colour of their skin and the past discrimination they experienced? Are we really that afraid of stepping on toes and being labelled racist that we will not condemn and execute a black man despite the fact he is a murderer? What needs to be addressed is not the fact that prisons are rife with ethnic minorities or that ethnic minorities are being sentenced to death, but instead society needs to address outside factors: discrimination in the workplace, in schools, in public, in homes, etc. For example, I will use a Latino family. A Latino family might come to Canada for a better life. They are not criminals, have never been criminals, and are law-abiding citizens who deserve all the rights they are given. When they come to Canada, there are going to be racists that they will have to endure, this is an undeniable fact. There are many people still alive in today’s societies who were born into an acceptable racist community, and their views are sometimes passed down to their offspring and unfortunately are carried on through the generations. It is these types of people, the dominant, middle-class whites that produce the amount of ethnics being executed. Say the father of the Latino family is qualified to work in a mill, but the head honcho at the local mill is racist, and discriminates against him based on several of his ethnic factors like his skin colour, his accent and his stereotypes – well, he denies the Latino man a job – if the labour board were to launch an investigation the man could easily make up an excuse. It is nearly impossible to prove that someone was denied a position based on racial discrimination. Back to my scenario: this situation forces this Latino family into a lower economic social standing, and can often have a detrimental effect on those directly affected, like the children. The children may grow up doing petty crimes like stealing in order to eat. Stealing is a gateway to smaller thug crimes like breaking and entering and assault. These crimes can land a juvenile in prison, and in prison things tend to get worse. Point of views are changed and so are morals. This child may leave the prison system a changed man, but changed in all the wrong ways. And when and if this person ends up on death row, it is not because the justice system discriminates against Latinos, it is not because the justice system is racist, but because society is discriminatory and sets these families up for failure, forcing them into lives of thievery and crime. It’s not surprising that many ethnics end up in prisons and on death row. Maybe if civilians changed their attitude, realized that this is the 21st century and racism is not acceptable, these poor, ethnic families would stand a fighting chance in Canada or in the United States. Don’t blame the justice system for things that are not related. There are many factors at work that are out of the individual’s control that may force them to murder and rape, but we cannot sentence the action that led the person to do these things. Unfortunately, we need to sentence the action that broke the law, and while being racist is against the law, how is anyone supposed to tell truthfully why someone was denied a job? It is the harsh truth of living in North America, but it needs to be addressed. Let’s not forget the purpose of the death penalty. We are convicting and sentencing to death guilty people, not people who are black or Hispanic. No, there are much deeper reasons that need to be addressed. While it is true that in times of slavery, ethnic groups were executed unfairly for things that were not even crimes, that was in a time I was not alive and cannot justify those actions as there is no rational justification. It was wrong, and I think most people have come to realize that.

The biggest question of concern when discussing capital punishment is: is it is morally correct to kill those who have denied their victims the right to life? While I cannot decide for any one person, I can decide for myself and argue my point. First of all, I’ve heard it a million times, let’s all say it together: “you’re killing to show that killing is wrong”. Yes, yes, we’ve all heard it. But, I’ve said it before and I will say it again; there is an enormous difference between the unlawful act of murder and lawful retribution. Of course it is not morally right to kill a person, that is the point of the death penalty, but it is morally right to seek lawful retribution for our deceased. Justice is not about bringing back the dead, nor is it about revenge. In fact, justice is about enforcing consequences for one’s actions to evoke responsibility. How can we expect anyone to take responsibility for their actions if punishments are not severe and enforced fully? I like to stress the fact that seems to be prominent about abolitionists: anyone can kill any amount of innocent people, as long as they don’t harm a murderer. Why do abolitionists spend so much time protecting the murderers and such little time protecting the innocent people they subject to these murderers by keeping them in a faulty prison system?

Regardless, there will always be reasons for keeping capital punishment from returning to Canada, though the people who make arguments against capital punishment will often use uneducated information to do so. All that I ask of my peers is that they research capital punishment prior to debasing it, as well as debasing people like me who support capital punishment. Abolitionists will deduce that “supporters of the death penalty were often presented as crude and unfeeling” though I find this to be a crude generalization, and quite inappropriate. I am not a crude person nor am I unfeeling, though I fail to find sympathy for people who murder and rape. I know many other supporters who do not fit this generalization, either. My counter argument would be that people who support the death penalty, particularly in extreme cases, like me, are not crude – but instead are angry. Why are abolitionists glamorizing the crudeness of those who support the death penalty and equality of life and not glamorizing the crudeness of the murderers in concern to how vulgar they are? They are the criminals – not us!

Room for Improvement

Nothing is perfect; clearly our justice system is not perfect with or without the death penalty. There are flaws in every design. I am not naïve enough to believe that the death penalty is flawless in any way, and therefore, I am certainly going to touch-base with some key facts that need to be addressed to make the death penalty, and the reinstatement of it in Canada, as effective as possible. Some shortcomings with capital punishment are used by abolitionists – some of which hold some truth, and others which do not – but other shortcomings do seriously need to be addressed prior to reinstatement.

One thing that always comes to mind when debating the death penalty is the use of the bodies after capital punishment has been carried out. One day I hope to have a way of sentencing criminals to death so that their organs can be salvaged and used for medical purposes or to donate to those in need. It is sad that all those sentenced to death in the world by electrocution and lethal injection has bodies that are useless in terms of organ donations. That is the worst shortcoming – and not the only shortcoming I might add – of the death penalty.

Prior to the 1970s it was possible for executions to be given immediately during a sentencing . Due to many past, racial issues and the discriminatory way that the death penalty was distributed, the justice system was changed so that the defendant’s lawyers, before the trial, had to find out every aspect of the defendant’s life. Seating a jury for the death penalty also is a timely process, and can take several weeks. Furthermore, virtually every death penalty case will result in an appeal. The drafting and submission of these briefs for the appeal can take anywhere from six months to a year, a very strenuously and extended amount of time. The courts then must look over them, and this can also take up to a year. One would think that one appeal would take place and one alone, but several more appeals take place. After all the appeals are said and done, the defendant will ask for the execution not to be delivered. In the end, an execution date can be set anywhere from five to ten years from the crime, and unfortunately, many death row inmates in Texas and other states like Texas have been on death row for decades. Clearly, this is a problem that needs to be addressed for many reasons. While the justice system is merely making an effort to be thorough and to ensure no mistakes are made in the putting to death of another human, something needs to be done in a big way to make executions more swift. Because execution dates are set so far into the future, the criminals that should be sentenced to death in a timely fashion end up costing the tax payers millions of dollars more than they should.

People will also stress the fact that it is important for criminals to be proven guilty beyond a doubt prior to being sentenced – but we should say that about all sentencing, not just the sentencing of the criminals to death. Yes, sentencing does need to be dependent on the evidence at hand – if there is even a question that the criminal would be innocent, even a sliver of a doubt, the death penalty should not be imposed. Only in the most undoubted of cases – cases with DNA evidence, with a confession, with eye witnesses, with rock solid proof – should a criminal ever be sentenced to death. Today, this is less of a problem – though it is still a problem. Prior to DNA evidence as I have previously suggested, the justice system was quick to condemn the first person who seemed suspicious, and I am sure those people have recognized the flaws in that system as well. I’m not here to protect and reinvent an old system – I am here today to perfect a system that I truly believe can be beneficial for human life – a system that I believe has potential.

My sister-in-law, also an advocate of the death penalty, sent me a link to a news website for MSNBC TV. The link, I could see, was about the death penalty. However, the link was about the state of Georgia’s attempt to pass a bill for the death penalty to be imposed on pregnant mothers who suffer a miscarriage. At first glance, I was in disbelief. How could a law be passed against a natural occurrence? I can completely understand the attempts of a government to outlaw miscarriages by avoidable actions (drinking, smoking, drugs, etc) but what I cannot understand is the desire to punish women who sincerely want children but physically cannot carry a child to full term. This is an example of a government gone too far. Though Georgia is notoriously pro-capital punishment I sincerely hope that people have the common sense not to push this bill through – as it is absurd. Not all activists want the death penalty for silly crimes like this one. I want the death penalty for serious crimes, crimes that deserve to be punished severely – but those who support this bill are just being ridiculous. Don’t, for one second, believe that as a pro-capital punishment activist you need to support the death penalty for all crimes – supporting it for first and second degree murder is enough for me.

What we need to address is the fact that capital punishment has a long way to go before ever being perfect, but when we address this fact we also need to address the fact that life imprisonment is also imperfect. Capital punishment needs to be thought out appropriately and not just a sentence given when in doubt, or for every case. Cases are unique in their own way, and the evidence at hand needs to be strongly taken into consideration for every person – in no way am I ever in favour of capital punishment for every single case that goes to trial. It is a much more intelligent and important process than turning a blind eye to the evidence at hand. For some murderers, I may suggest life imprisonment with no chance of parole, and for other murderers I would seek to have them emerged into an institution for the mentally unstable – for life – and in other cases, yes, I would support the death penalty. Because, the world is just better off without some people.

For the sake of argument, were capital punishment never an option (and I mean never, as it may so be in Canada), I would suggest many revisions for the current prison system in Canada as well as in the United States to combat this loss of capital punishment. First of all, I previously praised the consecutive life sentences of the United States. However, this system is still not flawless. While consecutive life sentences are served, there are many ways that prisoners can leave prison prior to the end of their sentence. Some states have passed laws that mean life without parole is just that – no parole – and for life. If a twenty-five year old is serving a twenty-five year sentence, they can still get out of prison. Twenty-five years is hardly life. This is called parole.

Conclusion

After everything is said and done, I find myself wondering why the news is plagued with murderers being portrayed as victims. The murderers have their faces plastered over every news channel available, but why do we hear so little about the victims and their loved ones who are left behind who must alter their entire lifestyle based on one person’s decision to kill? An example of this in a local setting for my peer readers would be the Muslim woman from Calgary who smothered her daughter and was not charged for it. This woman’s name is Aset Magomadova. Instead of her daughter getting the publicity she deserves for being unjustly killed, the mother gets this publicity and the judge decides that a prison sentence would not be fair for this out of control mother. My friend once said to me that sentencing the murderer to death is taking the easy way out, that the murderer should be left to rot in a little, white room with no television and no education options available to them. I agree that the government should condemn these criminals to the worst punishment imaginable; if capital punishment were never an option I would dream of a prison system where murderers and rapists do not get three meals a day while young children go starving; I dream of a prison system where television is only available to non-violent offenders; I dream of a prison system where the murderers and rapists have no visitation rights, and may never see their family and friends again like their victims; I dream of an unthinkable justice system, my friends, because everything that the murderers do not deserve to get cannot be taken away, as it would be cruel and unusual punishment to starve them. Regardless, as we have clearly seen by way of “Sherriff Joe” there is an effort moving toward prisons that are not as accommodating to their inmates. So, until the day our laws are revised to allow for cruel and unusual punishment for our society’s most heinous crimes, death is the only option.

Bibliography

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