Murder
rr HE conclusion to be drawn from the BBC's 1 documentary The Death Penalty was suc- cinctly expressed by Peter Black: 'the abolitionists have all the evidence. The retentionists have the emotions'—a view that has since been confirmed by the publication of the report by the Home Office Research Unit on the crime of murder. The statistical evidence is actually even stronger than the BBC programme conveyed; the murder rate in this country, for example, at its lowest in recent times when capital punishment was in abeyance, has risen since hanging was reintro- duced—and there is no indication that intending murderers have sought to evade the noose by choosing methods which, if detected, can lead only to a life sentence.
But in any case the hangers have shifted their ground. Two main lines of argument are now discernible in the presentation of their case. One is pragmatic—that the police will be at too serious a disadvantage if criminals know they can kill without fear of execution. But this is to assume that criminals take the possibility of execution into account, and all the evidence suggests they do not: the kind of man who worries whether he will be hanged is not the kind of man who commits murder.
The other is mystical : that whether capital punishment deters or does not deter is irrelevant —its value lies in giving expression to society's detestation of the crime of murder; and society ought not to be deprived of that privilege. But this is a regression to the primitive notion of human sacrifice—that lives should be forfeit not to protect society but to observe society's taboos. If these are the best arguments the hangers can muster—and if they have to fall back for a spokesman on Sir Thomas Moore--their case is weak indeed.
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