According to Rachel Peterson, a local journalist of Oklohama, two executions are to be carried out in January 2010 in the state. Alverson and Matthew are to be executed for their murder of a Richard Kevin during a robbery. Death sentence and widely distributed gun licenses in an advanced country like the United States creates a question about the ability of ruling mechanisms to control crimes.
Nepali elite rulers and those of other grant-and-loan-dependent developing nations staunchly believe that the United States is the best model of democracy for them to follow. But there are others who believe that capital punishment is not a sign of genuine democracy. Especially, the working class people think that the criminalization of politics handled by the overprivileged traditional elites is the fundamental cause for the growth of crimes in the society.
While most of the developing nations, no matter how weak the implementation of their democracy may be, have rejected the idea of capital punishment, the ‘best model’ of democracy—the United States—has strongly maintained it till today. According to
documents about death penalty information, 1,234 capital punishments have taken place in the United States since 1976. In Texas alone, 464 death penalties have been implemented while 108 death sentences have taken place in Virginia. Likewise, 94 is the figure in Oklohama. The above source further indicates that 61 percent of Americans are against the death penalty provisions.
While the most advanced nations like the United States are not willing to give up their legal provisions of capital punishment, the ruling classes in the developing nations are punishing innocent people to death not through legally defined death penalty provisions but through impunity, all-pervasive corruption and the politically protected criminal networks. In appearance, countries like Nepal, India and others may appear democratic; however, they have continuously punished people to death through their ill-intentioned rule for decades.
Both the United States and its allies and the developing countries have to work hard to address the grassroots causes of well-protected criminal networks and the victimization of ordinary people. If they are genuinely committed to democratic spirit, they have to inspire even the most barbarous rulers through democratic means. Since the Muslim world gives more death penalties in horrendous ways, including even through collective rapes, the democratic forces of the world must set themselves as the proper examples to abolish the death penalties by abiding by the universally adopted human rights principles based on social justice.
Had the rates of crimes gone down along with the executions and lethal injections organized by the states in the name of punishment, China and the United States, for instance, would not face ever-growing criminal incidents.
The existence of death penalties implies that states also uphold violence and murder. A tit-for-tat method of the primitive era. Should there be will, life imprisonment itself (legally amended to prolong) could be adequate.
The greatest technique to reduce crime rates would be to internalize the most scientific Buddhist principles of constructing a human rights-friendly mindset since early education and through public journalism-spirited mass media. In this context, it is quite essential to be aware that even entertainment media are knowingly or unknowingly instigating crimes in the name of commercial freedom.