"The survival of such a primitive rite has been made possible
only by the thoughtlessness or ignorance of the public..."
- Albert Camus, Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1957.
So if some of us dig beyond what's popular in the media to
make our own choices, educating ourselves on the facts behind
our opinions seems like an obvious step. There is an abundance
of mistruths that abound concerning the death penalty with
a good deal perpretrated by the media and our government.
Whether these are direct or indirect I don't differentiate.
Adding gasoline or paper to the fire still feeds it.
HISTORY In 1972, the Supreme Court evaluated the constitutionality
of the death penalty in the case of Furman vs. Georgia. Evidence
of "arbitrary and discriminatory" sentencing persuaded the
court that the death penalty violated the eighth amendement
against "cruel and unusual punishment".
Consider the current nature of our judicial system. Only
an idiot would argue it wasn't discriminatory allowing these
representative facts:
-
64.4% of crack users are white. 26.6% are black
African-Americans constitute 13% of all monthly drug
users yet they account for 35% of all arrests for the
possession of drugs, 55% of all drug convictions and 74%
of all those receiving drug-related prison sentences.
The 1986 Crime Bill made it so that a person caught
with 5 grams of crack receives a mandatory sentence of
five years. If that amount is 5.1 grams - the sentence
is ten years. For the same 5 year sentence, a person would
have to have 500 grams of powdered cocaine (a form obviously
used by the more affluent e.g. white)
With Gregg vs. Georgia (1976) the court decided that by restructuring
the capital trial and guiding discretion of jurors, death
sentencing could be applied fairly. This is assuming that
jurors and the court systems are completely unbiased. Of course,
this is wishful thinking and perhaps only obtainable by some
on-paper utopian society.
In 1985 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that potential jurors
whose beliefs "substantially impair" their ability to impose
a death sentence should be excused from serving on a capital
jury. The jurors who tend to be in the jury pool after the
initial round of questions pertaining to this ability to impose
the death penalty tend to be more conviction-prone than potential
jurors that were screened out.
CRIME MYTH Perhaps the biggest myth in this country is that of a rising
violent crime rate. Television news is arguably the greatest
contributor of this misconception. Thru sensationalized body-bag
journalism, we perceive our country as some "Escape from New
York" out-of-control death zone. The facts are that murder
rates per capita have largely stayed the same throughout the
years. The biggest factor affecting this rate is the economy
with a spike in the 1930's during the Great Depression and
a lowpoint in the post-World War II economic expansion.
Nearly 80 percent of us believe that crime is the biggest
problem facing our nation even though rates for most serious
crimes have been either stagnant or been dropping for the
past 15 years. And nearly 95 percent of us get virtually all
of our information about crime from televison. The purveyance
of more and more violent stories shown on the news has influenced
America into believing that there is a "war on our streets".
Yet we gobble up these stories instead of say a "dry" story
exposing government corruption. In essence, we as a majority
have created a false reality. Profit driven media does not
print or show images that we don't want - they have to answer
to the shareholders and let the statistics speak for themselves.
Most Americans when polled will say they're offended by the
constant barragement of violent images via TV or movies yet
when it comes to actions - they are the ones watching it or
paying for the movie tickets. An example is the recent study
on television sets with the v-chip installed. Of those parents
that owned a set with this ridiculous "parenting tool" installed,
only 17 percent used it. A 1993 Times-Mirror poll found that
72 percent of respondents think that entertainment television
contains too much violence. Other polls reflect a similar
percentage. Obviously as Americans we say one thing yet do
another.
POLITICIANS This crime myth rubs off on our representatives who use polls
heavily when coming up with a platform. The public says it's
afraid of crime so what do they do? Say they're hard on crime
and label opponents as "soft on crime" even though the opponent's
"soft on crime" ideas may be far more educated and beneficial
to our pocketbooks and safety. This has created an atmosphere
where public officials use hard on crime rhetoric to ensure
they are reelected. We fall for this every time. Even though
we say we're "disillusioned with Washington politicians" we
continue to reelect an unbelievable 96 percent of all congressional
incumbents.
To further add to this mess is the fact that we still allow
corporations to influence our policitians with their campaign
funds and lobbyists. The role of money in politics is simple
- the candidate who can get his or her hands on most of nearly
always wins. In 1998, in the Senate, the candidate who spent
the most won 93.9 percent of the time. By allowing our interests
to be misrepresented by wealthy corporations is a disservice
to say the least. With politicians most concerned about being
reelected and gathering up the most campaign funds, can we
sincerely say our best interests are being addressed?
Obviously not, since as I stated above, our representatives
are constantly using the "hard on crime" mumbo jumbo for election
(or reelection) purposes. The byproduct of this stance is
to introduce even harsher penalties to prove their ideology.
In 1993 a Senator might have been "hard on crime" but in 1996
he has to prove it by supporting legislation that might cost
the taxpayers even more with little or no results. These laws
have overcrowded our prisons and have expanded our prison
population to an unprecedented size.
|
