In 2002 Americans were very, very happy because they had only 16,638 criminal homicides: and they had reason to be happy, because from 1984 to 1993 criminal homicides were 22,000 per year. In contrast, in the same year (2002), in Italy we were very concerned because, with a population that is one fifth of America, we had 638 criminal homicides, and we were very concerned about it, even if 638 were half the homicides of 1994.
Americans love to think the drop is a result of the death penalty. We cannot agree because Italy does not impose the death penalty. (In Europe this punishment is strictly prohibited and the majority of the world is abolitionist).
Actually Italy ended capital punishment in 1888 and imposed it again only under fascism. In those sad years the homicide rate was five times bigger than what we have now, and, in the 20 years following the definitive end of the death penalty (1948-1968), the homicide rate dropped from five to 1.4. Something like this happened in Canada in the years that followed the end of capital punishment in 1976.
Curiously, in the same year, the Supreme Court gave the green light to a ""new and improved"" American death penalty and, with the shooting of Gary Gilmore ( Jan. 17, 1977), the hangman was back in business and the experiment began.
Now, after more than 1,000 administrative killings, we can say with Justice Blackmun that ""the death penalty experiment has failed"". Hangman states are not in a better situation than states without the death penalty. In the 10 states with the lowest homicide rate eight do not have the gallows, one does not impose the death penalty and one has an empty death row.
The death penalty is an enormous waste of lives, money, time and resources. This cancer is destroying the American justice system. It is not a deterrent and kills the poor, the weak, the mad, the illiterate, the black.
Of the thousand killed some were innocent, many mad and many more not guilty of a crime that warranted capital punishment. All of them would be alive, and some free, if they had had a competent counsel. Sooner or later Americans will realize that the death penalty is immoral, indecent, illegal, expensive, stupid, cruel, dangerous, racist, class-related and a violation of human rights.
DOTT. CLAUDIO GIUSTI Forll, Italia
