Now that President Rodrigo Duterte has openly stated he wants the restoration of the capital punishment of death to select heinous crimes like drug trafficking, the question now goes back whether or not death penalty is a real deterrent?
The Duterte government and its law enforcement agencies, the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), all agree the country needs to restore the death penalty in order to deter the illegal drugs trade before it gets out of control. The President statement of this hot topic in his fourth SONA revived the debate on the deterrent effect of death penalty to heinous crimes.
The website deathpenalty.org defined deterrence as “probably the most commonly expressed rationale for the death penalty.” It contends that “the essence of the theory is that the threat of being executed in the future will be sufficient to cause a significant number of people to refrain from committing a heinous crime they had otherwise planned. Deterrence is not principally concerned with the prevention of further killing by an already convicted death-penalty defendant. That falls under the topic of incapacitation.”
This brings us to the critical question of whether potential criminals will be dissuaded from engaging in drug trafficking or killing because they would face the death penalty rather than no punishment at all. Other punishments such as life without parole might provide equal deterrence at far less costs and without the attendant risk of executing an innocent person.
Whether the death penalty is a proven method of lowering the rate for the crimes attached to it will depend on many factors.
To rely on comparisons with other jurisdictions is not a dependable yardstick. There have been contentions from anti-death penalty advocates that the capital punishment did not work to deter crimes in other countries. That kind of mindset is ill-placed as there would be no reliable comparisons from the Philippines’ situation with that of other jurisdictions given that there are social factors like poverty and unemployment which is very much related to the illegal drugs trade in the country. For example, lower unemployment rates correlate with lower crime rates, and vice versa.
It is also important to note that the death penalty proposal will apply to select heinous crimes and this early, the suggestions include but not limited to terrorism, big time drug trafficking and other heinous crimes related to the use of illegal drugs, such as the rape of minors.
And then there is also the factor of strengthening the justice system.
The death penalty issue will heavily require studies and discussions. It is as critical as it is likewise urgent.
