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Even worse than inadequate defense is the execution of the falsely convicted. According to a study entitled In Spite of Innocence (1992), at least 23 innocent people have been executed in this century. And since 1972, 69 people wrongly convicted have been released from death row—21 of them since 1993. What has become of the principle that it is better that a few guilty people go free than that one person be falsely convicted?

The death penalty does not deter. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, the number of executions and the death-row population have grown significantly. Yet the murder rate has remained essentially the same. In fact, a majority of the states that practice capital punishment have higher murder rates than those that don't. And the U.S. murder rate is anywhere from five to twenty times that of other industrialized nations without the death penalty.

The death penalty does not deter, because murder often happens in the heat of the moment. And those who premeditate murder are willing to take the risk they won't get caught.

Society needs to work at the conditions that breed violent crime. Police chiefs, in a 1995 Hart Research poll, ranked the death penalty dead last as an option for deterring violent crimes. Their preferred strategies included reducing drug abuse, providing jobs, simplifying court rules, lengthening prison sentences, and reducing availability of guns (in that order). They know from experience what scholars have learned from statistics: (1) that when crime statistics are controlled for employment, there is little difference between blacks and whites (economic justice is as important as retributive justice); (2) child abuse increases the chance of juvenile delinquency 40 times (we need to get to the would-be criminals before they toughen up).

The death penalty fails to console. Does the death penalty ease the suffering of a murder victim's survivors who suffer from their sense of loss, from self-blame, and (oddly enough) from the criminal justice system? Whereas biblical law treated crime as an offense against a victim, it is now treated more as an offense against the state. And instead of setting things right between offender and victim, our criminal justice system pits the state against the accused. Victims are often helpless observers of a process that does not address their needs at a time when they are most needy.

Indeed, the state can provide some, but not all, of what survivors of violent crime need: a sense of protection against the crime being repeated; places, times, and rituals for lamenting their loss; knowledge that a guilty party has been identified; and a sentence that shows the crime is taken seriously.

Vengeful feelings are natural, but vengeful acts are ultimately counterproductive as they retraumatize the survivor. Nevertheless, survivors should never be pressed to forgive too quickly. They need time and communal support to weave into the story of their lives this horrendous turn of events. Fortunately, organizations like Neighbors Who Care, a PFM subsidiary, have emerged and are turning this need into a ministry of the church. Christian compassion can comfort the afflicted. More executions cannot.

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April 6 1998, Vol. 42, No. 4