Debate on capital punishment is ‘muddled’

UNLIKE the Rev Antony Buglass’s rational opposition to capital punishment much of the debate, both for and against, has been emotional and muddled (Yorkshire Post, September 30).

America is portrayed as either the villain of the piece or the hero, depending on which side of the argument you are on. It’s not as simple as that. One reader blames, among others, “the interference of religious leaders” for leniency towards violent criminals when the execution in question, like most others, took place in one of the Bible Belt states.

Another describes the penal code of what he sarcastically calls the “Land of the Free” as “grisly” and “depraved”.

The reality is that the majority of US states, especially in the more secular North East, have abolished the death penalty. New Jersey recently went down that road, an unremarkable event since nobody had been executed there since 1963.

Sixty per cent of executions in the US take place in Texas which, it is predicted, will eventually be the only state to carry them out.

For the record, Texas has a high rate of homicide.

One thing is certain, whether we like it or not, capital punishment will never be restored in Western Europe.