Cultural differences

For those of you who missed it, notorious British serial killer Harold Shipman hanged himself in his prison cell Tuesday. Shipman, a former physician and Britain's most prolific murderer, killed 215 of his patients. He was tried and convicted of 15 murders in 1999, resulting in life imprisonment.

What I find striking about this story, however, is the reaction of the victims' families to Shipman's suicide.

There's a sense of relief, even closure, among the survivors. But beyond that, they feel cheated. In part, the relatives had hoped to confront Shipman, to seek answers for why he committed so many heinous crimes (a motive for his homicidal ways was never determined).

And therein lies the stark contrast between Americans, with their stubborn insistence on maintaining the death penalty, and virtually the rest of the world, which has largely forgone capital punishment. Part of this is undeniably cultural. But beyond a more humane or enlightened tradition, I think there's something punitive in the anti-death penalty camp that's not recognized by those so quick to insist on retaining the electric chair (or gas chamber, lethal injection, firing squad, gallows, etc.).

Here's the deal: it's more punitive to strip a man or woman of his or her liberty and freedoms, forcing him or her to live until dying of natural causes. How so? You kill a person's spirit, remove all hope, eliminate the possibility of a second chance, and force him or her to grapple with the gravity of his or her crimes for years. It's a form of emotional and psychological punishment, and one more torturous and painful than simply being subjected to quick physical pain and the cessation of consciousness.

This is recognized by Jakub, a rehabilitated victim of a Stalinist purge in Milan Kundera's The Farewell Party. From his friend, the physician Skreta, Jakub had long ago secured a tablet of poison. His motivation was that it is only when a man has control over his own death (and consequently life) that he can ever have a measure of freedom. Jakub recognized that the worst, most brutal and torturous punishment to which the Stalinist regime could subject him was not execution, but forcing him to stay alive and living in such misery indefinitely. Having the poison at the ready empowered Jakub. In the same way, sentencing a convicted criminal to life in prison removes that agency and introduces a level of anguish unsurpassed by even execution.