The death penalty can not make Uganda a safer place to live in

Every October 10, we commemorates the World Day Against Death Penalty in a collective bid to intensify its advocacy and awareness of the campaign to abolish the death penalty. The day is celebrated in conformity and in solidarity with the collective voice to abolish the punishment. 

The theme for this year’s commemoration is “The Death Penalty Protects No One: Abolish it Now”. You will recognise that the complexity and upheaval caused by a capital offence that attracts murder can make people to behave in ways that are uncharacteristic. People lose the ability to communicate their distress, causing difficulties to others.

Bitterness and hatred prevail, their perception of people and life problems begin to surface in their personal relationships. Capital punishment is often defended on the ground that society has a moral obligation to protect the safety and welfare of its citizen, death row inmates threaten this safety and welfare. Sentencing convicts to death ensures that they do not get another chance to be with their families. In addition to causing death or taking away lives, the death penalty also wastes money. 

It is much more costly to execute a person than to imprison them for life. The penalty of punishment by death rightly requires that great procedural precautions be taken throughout all stages of death penalty cases to ensure that the chances of error is minimised. A case in point is the acquittal of Iwao Hakamada of Japan. On September 26, Mr Hakamada, an 88-year-old Japanese man, was acquitted by court after it was found that the evidence used against him was fabricated. He had spent not less than 46 years on death row, causing mental health disorder.

Uganda’s coalition against death penalty and its partners support this year’s theme, because they believe that let there be execution of justice, not people in a bid to abolish the death penalty in its law books. It goes ahead to indicate that the death penalty is premeditated murder, demeans the state and makes society more violent. By executing the person, the state commits a murder and shows the same readiness to use physical violence against its victims as the criminal.Moreover, studies have shown that the murder rate increases immediately after executions. 

Researchers have suggested that this increase is similar to that caused by other violent public event such as massacre and assassinations. Let us support children and family members of death row inmates, through psycho-social interventions, not forsaking counselling. There is need to establish sustainable income generating projects to support dependants of death row inmates.There is no evidence to support the claim that the death penalty is more effective than, say, life imprisonment.Death penalty does not keep society safe and it has never been conclusively shown that it deters crimes.

The author, Mr George Kibiike works with communities in Busoga Sub-Region