By Dr. Elliston Rahming

Once again, capital punishment has emerged as a table topic in our search for an effective response to the wave of murders in The Bahamas. This article seeks to widen the debate by offering objective data to advance the proposition that the death penalty does not deter would-be killers.

From the beginning of recorded history, nation states have carried out executions or capital punishment. The death penalty has taken many forms including hanging, drowning, stoning, beatings, being burnt to death, boiling, beheading, drawing and quartering, electrocution, firing squad and lethal injection.

When striped to its essence, the death penalty has had two overarching objectives: to express society’s outrage and levy a maximum level of revenge on the wrongdoer and secondly, the intent is to deter would-be wrongdoers from violating the same laws.

The revenge objective is clear cut. It sends a message to the condemned party that his crime was so objectionable that he can no longer live within a law abiding society, hence he will be executed. No real argument there. In other words, if we carry out executions to express our collective outrage towards someone convicted of murder so as to ensure that he won’t be in a position to carry out such an act ever again, then that objective can be easily realized.

However, most of the capital punishment debate centers around its deterrent effect- the notion that executions drive fear in would-be killers and influence them to

not engage in homicidal behaviour. Such conclusions I submit, are based on feelings, not facts. There are facts to guide us as we grapple with this age-old issue.

Before we bring this issue home, let’s take a global perspective. The United Nations has 193 member states and two observer states. With respect to capital punishment, fifty four ( or 28%) of the UN Member States maintain the death penalty in law and in practice. Twenty three UN Member States ( 12%) still have the death penalty on the books but have not carried it out within the past ten years. Another 118 (61%)UN Member States have abolished capital punishment for all crimes.

The death penalty has been completely abolished across Europe with the exception of Russia and Belarus. In Central and South America, Belize and Guyana alone still retain the death penalty but no one has been executed there in more than twenty years. As for the Caribbean, several countries, like The Bahamas, retain the death penalty but the last execution in The Caribbean was in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2008.

Finally, from a global perspective, it is instructive that among the ten countries with the lowest per capita murder rates (Singapore, Oman, Macau, Hong Kong, Switzerland, South Korea, Italy, Norway, Slovenia and Cyprus) only two, Singapore and Oman still carry out the death penalty.

The application of the death penalty within the United States is illustrative of the benign effect the death penalty has on the murder rate as seen in Table 1.

Table 1

Comparative Analysis of U.S. States with the highest/lowest Per Capita Murder Rates in Relation to the State’s Policy on The Death Penalty

U.S.States with Highest Murder Rates ( 2022 figures) Position on the Death Penalty

Mississippi Death Penalty State

Louisiana Death Penalty State

Alabama Death Penalty State

New Mexico Does not use Capital Punishment

Missouri Death Penalty State

U.S States with The Lowest Murder

Rates Position on The Death Penalty

New Hampshire Abolished Capital Punishment

Rhode Island Abolished Capital Punishment

Utah Death Penalty State

Massachusetts Abolished Capital Punishment

Maine Abolished Capital Punishment

A cursory glance at the data in Table 1 demonstrates that within the United States, among the five states with the highest per capita murder rates, four or (80 %) carry out the death penalty. Conversely, among the five U.S. States with the lowest per capita murder rates, four states (or 80 %) have abolished the death penalty. This finding is hardly spurious or coincidental. It suggests that the presence or absence of capital punishment is irrelevant to the rates of homicide. This reality therefore

significantly silences the deterrence argument. In the United States, the presence of the death penalty is known to have no significant impact on the murder rate. Furthermore, in the U.S. for every eight persons executed, one person on death row has been exonerated- not released on bail but released because subsequent evidence proved his innocence.

In The Bahamas, there is once again a cacophony of sounds calling for the death penalty as an antidote to the rate of murders. One would get the impression that there is at least a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that there is a positive relationship between capital punishment and the murder rate. Will we continue to shape social policy based on hysteria and emotions or based on facts and research?

What are the facts? What does research tell us? Between 1976 and 2023 (47 years) there have been roughly 2,933 murders in The Bahamas. Over the same period, there have been just thirteen (13) executions. Based on this reality, it defies logic to suggest that executions deter would-be murderers or somehow lower the murder rate. Given the vast differential between the murder count and actual executions, there simply has not been sufficient executions to draw any conclusion as to their beneficial impact on the murder rate.

For what it’s worth, as seen in Table 2, the evidence shows that when we look at The Bahamas murder rate within the year following executions, the results were the same as during the years when no execution was carried out.

Table 2

Murder Rates in The Bahamas In Relation to Executions Carried Out

1980 to1998

Year of Execution Number Executed that year Number of Murders that Year Number of Murders The Following Year

1980 3 25 19

1981 1 19 30

1983 2 25 19

1984 1 19 33

1996 2 51 46

1998 2 56 60

For the six years in which the death penalty was carried out between 1980 and 1998, the evidence suggests that the year following executions the murder rate increased three of those years and decreased over a three-year span, once again signaling that there is no factual basis to the argument that capital punishment has a deterrent impact on the homicide rate.

So, having regard to our alarming murder rate and in light of the fact that virtually all available data suggest that capital punishment is little more than a feel-good solution, what are we to do with the killers who roam our streets seeking to impose civilian executions? I suggest a short-term, six-step plan:

1. The mere possession of a high-powered weapon or unlicensed gun should lead to a sentence of twenty years

2. The arrest rate for murder must rise to 75% at a minimum

3. The conviction rate for murder must climb to 75% based upon the thoroughness of the investigation, the protection of the evidence and witnesses and the iron- clad nature of the prosecution.

4. Persons charged with murder must be tried within two years so as to minimize the bail dilemma.

5. Persons convicted of murder should face a sentence of at least twenty-five years in prison.

6. A sentence of life imprisonment (natural life) if convicted of killing a law enforcement officer, or a child or killing when connected to a home or business invasion or robbery.

For those who make the argument that feeding, clothing and housing a convicted killer for twenty-five years is unfair to taxpayers, I say the time has come for us to think outside the box. Once a killer has been sentenced, he should be regarded as a national resource. There are countless prison industry products and services that convicted killers can engage in to make their time behind bars productive, even profitable.

Under maximum security conditions, they can manufacture T-shirts and souvenir items for sale in the straw market. They can produce soap, lotion and shampoo from coconuts for sale to the supermarkets. They can manufacture back

packs and school furniture for the thousands of students in The Bahamas- the list is near endless.

Once these products are sold, the proceeds should be divided five ways: The Bahamas Department of Correctional Services should retain twenty-five percent to assist with the inmate’s upkeep; twenty-five percent should be invested into the furtherance of the business enterprise; fifteen percent should be placed in a special account to be awarded upon the inmate’s release; ten percent should be applied to the inmate’s commissary account to be utilized at his discretion and twenty five percent should go to the victim’s family. This is being done elsewhere with great success and we can do it in The Bahamas.

For those who fear the eventual release of a convicted murderer, I’d simply say this: The empirical evidence is that among the murder convicts who spent at least twenty years in our prison and were later released, not one has returned to prison. We have the solution, if we are prepared to be research-driven.

Note: The contents of this article are completely my own and for which I assume full responsibility.