Off With Their Heads
Some people like to persuade themselves that our rules governing capital punishment are as humane as can be, especially when Russian citizens are so regularly shot for comparatively mild, offences of currency swindling or tax dis- tortions. However, a detailed report just issued by the United Nations shows just how far we are from the top of the abolitionist league. For, even if our present half-way house to abolition, the 1957 Homicide Act, were altered to outright abolition today, we would be exactly a century behind Venezuela, ninety years behind Denmark and Portugal, and over sixty years be- hind Brazil and Ecuador. The report, quoting a mass of statistics from all countries, effectively shows again that the argument that abolition leads to increased crime is untenable. But any- one who believes the world is a more enlightened place should consider how widely political crimes have returned to the capital agenda; and equally disturbing by any criterion is upgrading of lesser and lesser crimes in the USSR. This report vividly illustrates the anomalies between differing systems of trial, appeal, extenuating circum- stances and reprieve: two anomalies the world Would be better without are the custom in Arkansas of keeping it a capital offence to 'kill by colliding while in charge of a steamboat' and the system in El Salvador whereby if several sen- tences are passed at the same time there is a tradition of executing only those at the top of the list.
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