Texas is getting ready to execute its 300th prisoner this Wednesday. Texas started executing prisoners back in 1982, so as it stands now Texas executes on average about fifteen people a year. This is a pretty hefty statistic as death penalties go. Especially for a nation that prides itself on being civilized. But there is nothing civilized about the death penalty. The fact of the matter is, the death penalty is little more than a carry-over from ancient barbarism.

Oh yes, one can argue that today's executions, since they are carried out by lethal injection , are far more "civilized" than they used to be. Consider, (the death penalty proponents like to say) just consider what it used to be like, when the grisly methods of gassing , electrocution , shooting and hanging were the preferred methods of capital punishment.

Those who argue in favor of the death penalty also like to point out that capital punishment is a deterrent to further homicide. The more state-sanctioned homicides you have, the argument goes, the less the possibility that someone will go out and commit murder. But is there any statistical evidence to support such this statement?

Well, look at Texas. In 1982 the population of Texas was about 15 million, according to the Census Bureau. In 2001 the population was about 22 million. In 1982 , according to the US Dept. of Justice, there were 2,466 murders in Texas; in 2001 there were 1331 murders, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. So murders are going down in Texas both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population. But, did these near 300 state-sanction homicides since 1982, cause a decline in the murder rate in Texas?

It's not really clear. Maybe. Maybe not. It is clear, at least in terms of absolute numbers that violent crime as a whole is going down. Nobody knows if the death penalty has much to do with it.

But why does the death penalty remain so popular? I can think of several reasons. One is a deeply held belief on the part of many, that the death penalty just works. It deters murder. Another is the fact that the death penalty has now become so much more sanitized. A death chamber nowadays does not really look like a death chamber; it looks like a hospital room. A convict's deathbed looks more like a hospital bed. It's a far different from something housing (say) an electric chair. Or a gas chamber. Or a gallows or shooting wall. The more sanitized the death penalty is, the easier it is on one's conscience. Finally, the death penalty nowadays is carried out more or less privately. It is not the public spectacle it once was in the 18th and 19th centuries.

With the private, sanitized nature of a modern executions, the prospects for ending the death penalty anytime soon are minimal. Out of sight, out of mind as the saying goes.

It's still an uncivilized barbarity.

Punditwalla--