Death penalty not the answer - women’s rights group

By Himal Kotelawala

Bringing back the death penalty to combat child abuse and sexual harassment is not a solution to the problem, a prominent women’s rights activist said yesterday.

Speaking to The Daily FT, Executive Director of the Women and Media Collective Dr. Sepali Kottegoda strongly denounced ongoing calls for the implementation of the death penalty, adding that existing laws should be more than adequate to bring perpetrators to book, as long as the said laws were properly implemented.

“We have no confidence that the existing laws have been implemented in a satisfactory way at all,” she said.

There have been increasingly vocal calls from activists and certain sections of the public for a lifting of the current moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of the murder and alleged rape of a five-year-old girl in Akarangaha, Kotadeniyawa last week. President Maithripala Siresena himself was reported to have said yesterday that capital punishment could be reintroduced with parliamentary approval as early as next year.

Over the past few days, the national conversation seems to centre round the topic of the death penalty, with many taking to social media to air their frustrations over an apparent lack of justice to victims of child molestation and their families, urging the Government to bring back the noose as a deterrent to such heinous crimes in the future.

Dr. Kottegoda pointed out that even in countries such as the United States, where the death penalty has been carried out for decades, there has not been a noteworthy drop in the number of rape and child molestation cases due to the death penalty being carried out.

According to a study published by the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 88% of American criminologists do not believe that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to crime.

“There is overwhelming consensus among America’s top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty,” the journal quotes the study as saying.

Dr. Kottegoda explained that Sri Lanka had a history of perpetrators and would-be perpetrators always looking for loopholes in the law.

“Prospective perpetrators also feel that they can get away with anything,” she said.

Dr. Kettogda reiterated that implementing existing laws would go a long way in combating the problem.

“I think people know that, if you commit such a crime you will be incarcerated, you will be subject to public shame. That will have a far bigger effect than the death penalty. There has to be enough interventions and engagement by society and lawmakers to bring perpetrators of this kind of crime to justice,” she said.

This has not been the case in Sri Lanka over the past decade or so, she said, adding that the death penalty might appear to paint a false picture of quick justice when, in reality, people will continue to engage in these crimes if they realise they can actually twist the law and get away with it.

Currently, the penal code allows for a maximum of 20 years imprisonment for sexual harassment, depending on the number of cases the accused is charged with. When asked if this was enough, Dr. Kottegoda said the non-implementation of existing laws has to be challenged.

“Implement the laws effectively and very strongly. We campaigned strongly for sexual harassment to be criminalised. People whose children have died or been murdered, or anybody who’s family has been abused or murdered, for them maybe 20 years will never be enough. But we also need to be able to say the laws that exist…. the non-implementation to the fullest of the laws that exist has to be questioned; it has to be challenged. The death penalty is not going to solve all the problems,” she said.