Opinion by Jason Willick: Why DeSantis and Trump are hyping the death penalty
annual U.S. homicides to have much of a deterrent effect. To the extent that there is a crime-control effect, it could probably be achieved at much lower cost to the government with other tools, such as more effective policing.
So what’s left? “The system of capital punishment that exists in America today is primarily a communication system,” Garland argued. “It is about mounting campaigns, taking polls, passing laws, bringing charges, bargaining pleas, imposing sentences, and rehearing cases. It is about threats rather than deeds, anticipated deaths rather than actual executions. What gets performed, for the most part, is discourse and debate.
The purpose of the death penalty, in other words, is no longer protecting the state or the public as such. It’s to be a source of material for politicians, activists, journalists, filmmakers and others. If democracy is a performance, drama and emotion drive engagement. While the death penaltyin legal expenses, it also generates millions in cultural and political output.
But the GOP’s death-penalty hype doesn’t break with the “late-modern mode” of capital punishment. Instead, it’s a perfect illustration of it. As the death penalty fades, calls for executions may become an increasingly valuable commodity for political entrepreneurs. Opponents of the death penalty — and I count myself as one of them — find this mildly sickening. But what we should be worried about is not the return of death as an instrument of authoritarian rule, or the routine execution of criminals that has sometimes been the Western norm. No, what we should worry about is the increasing frivolousness of our late-modern politics, and the ease with which it cheapens human life.
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