This blog post has been contributed by Tony Murphy, Module Convenor for Criminology.
This article references violent offences involving children. Please take care and consider whether you feel able to read this article at present and seek support if needed.
Introduction
Sixty years after the suspension of capital punishment in the UK, a series of high-profile, brutal murders – including the Southport attack in July 2024 – once again forces us to consider if capital sentencing should have a role to play. There never was a full national consensus on abolition, and for those who maintained that there is a role for the death penalty within the criminal justice repertoire, they often pointed to the heinous nature of some crimes, the wasted costs of long-term incarceration and protection of offenders, and moral or philosophical reasoning.
Some consider the death penalty to be a barbaric relic, rightfully banished to history books following the 1965 Act in Great Britain, which effectively abolished it (it was fully abolished in 1998). It conflicts with the moral compass of many people, and it conflicts with human rights frameworks. Yet, when faced with monstrous crimes, public appetite for vengeance often spikes – amongst a significant portion of the public anyway. It is necessary to re-examine whether capital punishment has a place in the modern times, or if it remains a symbol of an archaic, brutal system.
The debate periodically re-emerges following examples of abhorrent crimes that evoke profound societal shock. The 2025 sentencing of Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three young girls at a dance class in Southport (then aged 17), is a good example. Rudakubana received a sentence of life with a minimum of 52 years. This provoked intense, widespread public discussion.
This is not an isolated incident. Yet the brutal killing of Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe in Southport, led to calls from some politicians, notably within Reform UK, to spark a national debate on reintroducing capital punishment for premeditated murders, terrorism, and child killers. When justice seems unable to provide a sense of ultimate finality for victims’ families, the death penalty is presented as the only moral solution.
To kill, or not to kill…
Proponents of the death penalty argue that the current justice system is failing in its duty to protect the public and punish the heinous. One rationale for reintroducing death relates to retribution, and even proportionality. Some crimes are so monstrous that imprisonment is an inadequate response. The concept of proportionality dictates that for taking a life, offenders should forfeit their own life. For families of victims, a whole-life tariff can still feel like a lingering presence, a chance for the perpetrator to exist, however restricted. We can extend this to other crimes, such as the rape of children. In criminology, we describe how Classicist’s position proportionality of response as a crucial legitimising force of criminal justice – consider Beccaria and Bentham.1 The more serious a crime, the more serious the response should be. However, they wrote in the context of what they saw as a brutal system, anchored around the use of death, and so for them, capital sentencing was not the solution then, and so it would not be the solution today.
One might argue that capital punishment serves as the ultimate deterrent. If criminals fear losing their lives, they may be less likely to commit serious crimes. It also provides guaranteed incapacitation. A dead murderer can never escape or be released and offend again. Yet the evidence for deterrence in practice is problematic. We know for example that when death was an integral feature of criminal justice on these isles (research the ‘Bloody Code’), this did not prevent serious crimes from taking place. This ties back to the argumentation of Beccaria and Bentham.
And while crime statistics are problematic on several levels (they are social constructs or artefacts), in countries where the death penalty is still routine employed today, we do not see such strong deterrent effects. The US is a good example — albeit the variation between different states, and specific historical contexts complicates the analysis. In any case, and as criminologists discuss, some crimes are crimes of passion, emotional, and sometimes, uncontrollable acts. The deterrence argument falls down unless criminals are rational choice actors.
Another argument relates to the cost-effectiveness of punishment. In a time of constrained public resources, and with most families struggling to get by, and considering the costs involved with putting very serious offenders in prison for life in high secure environments, one might argue that public finances can be better served. Where there is seemingly no doubt regarding an offender’s guilt, is it morally superior to put a child murderer or rapist, or mass murderer to death and invest the millions then saved from their incarceration into feeding the poor, providing resources for schools or hospitals, supporting victims of crimes etc.?
Why should children go hungry, the elderly die from the cold, or people die from treatable conditions, and at the same time, we spend a fortune incarcerating and protecting those who many people would regard as monsters?2 Of course, this is an overly simplistic argument in the context of complex fiscal decision-making in practice, but never-the-less, it is a useful heuristic.
Despite the emotional, and in part logical arguments for the use of death, the arguments against the death penalty remain clear. The most potent argument relates to error and thus, human fallibility. In the decades since the UK abolished the death penalty, forensic science has improved, but judicial errors still occur. An execution is irreversible. If a wrongfully convicted person is executed, there is no way to rectify the miscarriage of justice.
The issue of morality is also important. For opponents, the state should not have the authority to take a life. Some criminologists use the concept of state murder and link such actions of the state to power and inequalities, and dynamics such as race and class.3 Moreover, it is a violation of human rights and a descent into the same immorality that the state is meant to be punishing. The UK government itself has long held that capital punishment undermines human dignity. But is this view too simplistic and limited in practice? What does it say about a society which goes to extreme lengths to house and safeguard child murders and rapists, while victims and their families suffer eternal anguish? In any case, any change would require stepping away from the European Convention on Human Rights.
A civilised society is defined by how it treats even its worst members. By choosing to imprison rather than kill, the state upholds a higher moral standard. Furthermore, life without the prospect of release already (arguably) ensures that the most dangerous individuals are removed from society permanently, fulfilling the need for public safety without resorting to execution.
Conclusion
Debating the death penalty is not merely about whether a criminal deserves to die; it is about what kind of society we wish to live in. While the anger surrounding recent, tragic murders in the UK is perfectly understandable, the emotional urge for vengeance should not dictate long-term criminal justice policy. But the arguments for the death penalty will not go away.
The death penalty is a final, irrevocable act in a legal system that, by its very human nature, is fallible. While the desire for “ultimate justice” is strong, death penalty opponents might argue that a robust, transparent, and strictly enforced system of life imprisonment without parole provides the same protections as execution, without the moral crisis of state-sanctioned murder. However, the moral argument cannot be monopolised by one side of the debate. Some crimes are so evil that they raise legitimate debate on the issue.
References
- For an overview of the Classicist position, including the intellectual underpinnings by Beccaria and Bentham, see Tony Murphy, Criminology: a contemporary introduction, 2nd edition (London: Sage, 2023). ↩︎
- Where the death penalty is used – e.g., in some US states – the cost of implementation is high because of the actual mechanisms used, and the legal and procedural processes followed, which take a long time. Some might argue that such processes and safeguards are excessive. ↩︎
- Ibid. See discussions of critical criminological positions, social harm, and Zemiology. ↩︎