Abstract

Redeeming the Murderer

In forty-two American states the archaism of capital punishment continues in defiance of the manifold evidence proving that punishment by killing is no deterrent to crime. In the six states where the death penalty has been abolished for non-political crimes, lifelong confinement of murderers is perpetrated as the sole acceptable alternative to capital punishment. Ostensibly life incarceration is invoked for the protection of society from the "incorrigible" and "dangerous" offender. In reality, insistence upon it springs much more from instincts of retribution and revenge. According to the article author, the truth is that the constructive civilized alternative to execution or veritable life-imprisonment for the "dangerous" and "twisted" criminal has not yet been fully accepted in any country of the world.