BBC Focus mag has a very good article on the science behind the carrying out of the death penalty over the years. It’s worth a read. However I had one crib with the article so I wrote to them. This is a lazy blog entry so I’m just gonna paste the letter.

This month’s article on execution is bound to generate some criticism for glorifiying the death penalty. I look at it the other way as feel that if more people understand the death penalty they will be more opposed to it and your article could well be valuable towards that aim and the history and science behind it is very interesting reading. However, I would have preferred that you describe lethal injection as the least inhumane rather that the most humane as I don’t believe there is any humane way of taking another human life; but that’s mere semantics.

I do have one criticism of the article though. On the map showing where the death penalty is in use and who it is used against you have the United States as allowing the death penalty for adult offenders only. If only that were the case. In fact, the US is one of only 5 countries who has executed juvenile offenders since 2000. Since January 2000 the US has executed 9 men who committed their crimes under the age if 18. Since the death penalty was reintroduced in the US in 1976 execution of juvenile offenders accounts for about 2% of total executions. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=27&did=203 gives the details of this. According to Amnesty International the US has carried out 4 of the last 5 known executions of juvenile offenders in the world.

Only two countries in the world have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - Somalia and the United States and 21 US states still allow the execution of people who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crime despite UN Conventions. So to say that the country as a whole only executes adult offenders is erroneous. To quote the Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold: “I don’t think we should be proud of the fact that the United States is the world leader in the execution of child offenders.” (November 11, 1999). I think he’d also agree that denying this truth would not be something to be proud of either.

Regards,