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Bennett's
Declaration Upon his
retirement, from 30 years as Director of the United States Bureau of Prisons,
James V. Bennett wrote: 1)
"There
is something inherently disgusting about the death penalty that leads to
excesses. Small wonder that prison wardens, (like) John Ryan of Milan, Lewis
Lawes of Sing Sing, James Johnston of Alcatraz, and Clinton Duffy of San
Quentin were in the forefront of those who wanted to abolish capital
punishment.[i] 2)
"In 1935
1 made a list of the 184 executions that had taken place in the federal and
state jurisdictions during the year and noted that executions were being
carried out at a rate of eighteen for every thousand homicides. In 1964, the
year in which I retired, there were twenty- one executions at a rate of three
per thousand homicides. Since then the actual use of the death penalty has
declined further. In 1965, of sixty-seven men condemned to death, sixty-two
were reprieved. In 1966 only one man was executed in the whole country, and
in 1967 there were two. In l968, for the first year on record, there were no
executions in the United States. Today (1970) more than four hundred
condemned men wait in death cells, while their attorneys maneuver through the
appellate process. It is safe to say that most of them will be reprieved or
their convictions set aside because they were denied a fair trial. Most of the
other countries of western Europe, and Japan, have abolished the death
penalty.[ii] 3)
"Over
the years, I have found myself increasingly appalled by the nature of the
penalty I was often responsible for carrying out.[iii] 4)
"As my
experience increased, so did my conviction that capital punishment was no
deterrent to rape, kidnaping, armed robbery, or most homicides. The five
states with the lowest murder rates (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North
Dakota, and Vermont) have in fact abolished the death penalty, and have seen
no increase in willful killings since they did so. Abolishing the death
penalty, furthermore, does not indicate a softening of approach to crime and
violence. It has been shown time and again by riots, police begets, and
unrestrained gunfire that violence begets violence.[iv] 5)
"The
least we should do is reduce the number of crimes for which the death penalty
may be imposed, specifically ruling out most types of murder, armed robbery,
and rape. As a concession, we may perhaps retain the death penalty for high
treason mass murder, or multiple murders, the assassination of the President,
murder-for-hire, the kidnaping and/or rape of children under fourteen, and
the murder of law-enforcement officers engaged in the performance of their
duties.[v] 6)
"We should
also rewrite the statutes to provide that before the death penalty can be
imposed, the jury have full information about the convicted murderer or
rapist including a psychiatric examination. And we must provide that capital
punishment may never be imposed by a judge acting alone, and that three-man
panels of judges must be convened to pass on capital cases when the jury so
recommends.[vi] 7)
"And it
goes without saying that, in capital cases, the federal and state laws ought
to be brought into harmony.[vii] 8)
"The single most important contribution American
families can make to the fight against crime is to stimulate their boys'
interest in their education and in development of skills of every type. No fewer than 54.7 % of felony inmates in
the federal system did not go to high school, and another 27.6% were high
school dropouts. In other words, only 12.4% of felony inmates are high school
graduates, only 4.2% have had one to three years of college, and 1. 1% are
college graduates. An important motivation toward crime is lack of education,
using that term in its broadest sense - religious education, moral training,
character building - not lack of intelligence. The IQ levels of the felony
inmates were comparable to the national averages. The federal prison records
also show that unskilled men outnumber the skilled men overwhelmingly.[viii] |