A review by poachedeggs
Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States by Helen Prejean
3.0
The death penalty is still used in Singapore and there is no sign that it will be abolished any time soon. The way it is carried out is vastly different from how the U.S. imposes it - there is little room for appeals, re-hearings and the granting of a pardon. Once sentenced, the inmate is hanged fairly quickly.
Reading Dead Man Walking (I haven't seen the movie), it's hard not to compare the situation Sister Helen describes with that in Singapore. One of Sister Helen's more persistent arguments is that capital punishment has not been proven to deter serious crime; I think, however, that this is something that may not be true in Singapore, for the reasons I cited in the first paragraph.
What is a more powerful argument for me is whether we can ever trust the state or a government to pass judgment on a human being and take away the life of another when human beings are inherently flawed, much less an unwieldy group of them. I do think lifelong imprisonment without the possibility of parole would be more ethical.
Then again, I have to admit that I feel seriously uncomfortable at the thought of people like Ted Bundy still being alive and imprisoned somewhere in my country. Sister Helen makes a good case for Pat, the first death row inmate she befriends, but Willie, the second one she gets to know, does not seem to regret his actions (more than one murder - and a rape) one bit. Much as I think the death penalty should be abolished, I need to reconcile myself with the fact that many crazy, cold-blooded murderers will continue to haunt society if the death penalty were gone.
Back to the book - I was drawn to the first few chapters, which are impassioned and moving, but Sister Helen's style becomes rather repetitive, especially as she includes her story with Willie after Pat's, and tends to revisit arguments more than once (or even twice) in the course of the book.
Reading Dead Man Walking (I haven't seen the movie), it's hard not to compare the situation Sister Helen describes with that in Singapore. One of Sister Helen's more persistent arguments is that capital punishment has not been proven to deter serious crime; I think, however, that this is something that may not be true in Singapore, for the reasons I cited in the first paragraph.
What is a more powerful argument for me is whether we can ever trust the state or a government to pass judgment on a human being and take away the life of another when human beings are inherently flawed, much less an unwieldy group of them. I do think lifelong imprisonment without the possibility of parole would be more ethical.
Then again, I have to admit that I feel seriously uncomfortable at the thought of people like Ted Bundy still being alive and imprisoned somewhere in my country. Sister Helen makes a good case for Pat, the first death row inmate she befriends, but Willie, the second one she gets to know, does not seem to regret his actions (more than one murder - and a rape) one bit. Much as I think the death penalty should be abolished, I need to reconcile myself with the fact that many crazy, cold-blooded murderers will continue to haunt society if the death penalty were gone.
Back to the book - I was drawn to the first few chapters, which are impassioned and moving, but Sister Helen's style becomes rather repetitive, especially as she includes her story with Willie after Pat's, and tends to revisit arguments more than once (or even twice) in the course of the book.