by Everet Green

while the United States has been expanding the death penalty and accelerating executions, the world community has been moving away from capital punishment.

The fundamental question we need to ask is; how can the human person create the most favorable conditions for human happiness and transform human existence into something in keeping with the human ideal.

By humanism we mean a system of reflections about the human person that regard him or her as the supreme good and to guarantee in practice the best condition for human flourishing. The death penalty under ANY condition symbolizes the greatest affront to human dignity and the fact that politicians in the US and the Caribbean in particular, increasingly are using it as an instrument of state terror clearly speaks to the reality that we are adrift with a broken moral compass which seems to have lead to the increase in the commodification of all values.

Although we have recently celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights. IT is a sad fact that the continued use of the death penalty as an instrument of repression is indicative of the most pernicious violation of human dignity. AS chief justice BRENNAN of the US supreme court said "Even the most vile murderer does not release the state from its obligation to respect dignity, for the state does not honor the victim by emulating his murderer. Capital punishment's fatal flaw is that it treats people as objects to be toyed with and discarded.." (W. Brennan, What the Constitution Requires, New York Times, April 28, 1996). When asked by a ruler whether the lawless should be executed Confucius answered : 'what need is there of the death penalty in government? If you showed a sincere desire to be good, your people would likewise be good. The virtue of the prince is the wind, the virtue of the people grass. It is the nature of grass to bend when the wind blows upon it'

Unfortunately , today the death penalty continues to be raked with injustice which include race, local politics economics and location meanwhile political expediency has become the chief 'Virtue' of most politicians. Consequently in the USA the death penalty has become the drawing card of many political campaigns and has been inserted in an increasing number of state, national and judicial elections. When opposing candidates both support capital punishment, they contend for who can mete out more crime that can meet death penalty requirements. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act signed by President Clinton on September 13, 1994 increased Federal crimes for which the death penalty is now available as a sentencing alterative to at least 40.

The International Commission of Jurists concluded after a visit to the United States in 1996 that racial prejudice influences the imposition of the death penalty and that elected judges lack the independence to protect constitutional and human rights in capital cases.

The sentence a defendant receives still depends on the quality of the defense lawyer, the location of the crime, the race of the victim and the political aspirations of the prosecutor rather than how bad the crime was or how irredeemable the accused.

For the second successive year, on April 3, 1998 the UN Commission on Human Rights established that "the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights". The commission also asked retentionist states "to established a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty".

The 1997 Hands off Cain Report shows that retentionist countries are 81, the totally abolitionist countries are 58; the abolitionist countries for ordinary crimes are 15; the de facto abolitionist are 25 . Now it is aim of the Citizens' and Parliamentarians' League for the Abolition of the Death Penalty Worldwide by 2000 to work vigorously towards its realization.

The two most powerful countries in the world today are among the chief violators of human rights - United States and China.

In the United States more and more prisoners are on death row who committed crimes as minors. In this regard US continues to violate international treaties. Indeed the United States joins Iran, Pakistan, YEMEN AND Saudi Arabia in imposing the death Penalty on individuals for crimes they committed as children in an out right violation of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In ratifying this International Convention in 1992 the United States became the only country to ever enter a formal reservation preserving its authority to death-sentence children. The United States is one of two countries in the world yet to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In 1996 4367 executions were carried out in China .The US condemns the violation of human rights in China but votes with China against the UN Commission on Human Rights resolution. China carries out more executions than the rest of the world.

In the United States caste system the death penalty is the final solution for the untouchables - slaves whose service cannot be fully utilized in the prison industrial complex. Let us consider the following sobering statistics:

In 1992, All levels of Government in the United States spent $94 billion on the justice system one-third of that for corrections. The $32 billion for corrections was a 356 percent increase over the $6.9 billion spent in 1980. States incarceration of African Americans on drug charges increased 707 percent from 1985 to 1995, the justice department reported. Recently the Sentencing Project based in Washington D.C. reported that: (1) Between 1985 and 1995 the number of African-American women in State or federal prisons increased 200 percent. (2) One in three African-_American males ages 20-29 are in prison or under supervision (3) In California, 40 percent of African-American males in their twenties are in prison or under supervision. (4) In the District of Columbia 42 percent of African-American males ages 18-35 are in prison or under supervision. (5) In Baltimore, Maryland, 56 percent of African-American ages 18-35 are in prison or under supervision. (6) African-Americans and Latinos represent about 90 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to state prisons.

To any casual observer it should be evident that our national social landscape is looking more and more like a wasteland as our young people are herded daily into concentrations camps euphemistically refer to as prisons . What is considered the scar of blackness is now being removed by state policy under the rubrics of "Operation Clean Sweep" (Washington D.C.) And "Quality of Life Arrest" (New York). Discriminatory sentencing policies such as mandatory minimums "Three Strikes" and the disparity between crack and powder cocaine have also increased the forced removal of blacks from the mainstream of society. The Public Defender's Office argued that of the 24 federal crack prosecutions since 1991 in U.S. District Court of Los Angeles none involved Caucasians

As wages contract and the work force expand consider the following: (1)The percentage of families below the poverty line has grown by 26.4 percent since 1977(1). (2) In June 1989 it was reported that since 1980. CEOs' total compensation has jumped from 42 times that of a production worker to 141 times greater(2). (3) Not only does the top 1 percent receive a disproportionate amount of the total income but they also own 40 percent of the nation total net worth- more than is owned by the entire bottom 90 percent of families in the United States. This economic elite owns 49 percent of all publicly held stock , 78 percent of bonds and trusts, 62 percent of all business assets 45 percent of all non residential real estate. The top 10 percent owns 68 percent of the nation's wealth. Apart from homes and real estate , those making up the bottom 55 percent have zero or negative assets. In the wealthiest group 98 percent are white. (3)

Now contrast the above with the following:

(1) The United is the most unequal industrialized nation in the world in terms of income and wealth. It also has the highest child poverty rate of any industrial country with more than 21 percent growing up poor. The percentage rate for African-American children is over 50 percent. The United States spends only 0.6 percent of its gross national product on income support for children. Canada spends 1.6 percent. (2) According to the report, Unhealthy Choice : How New York State is Sacrificing Education for-Incarceration", about 46 percent of the people arrested in York City live in neighborhoods served by the city's 16 poorest performing schools.(3) In the 1980s, states increased spending on prison construction at over two times the rate of the spending for college construction. Over the past two decades , the increase of per capita spending for corrections surpassed higher education by a margin of 3to1 (4) (4) Now it is the policy of some states to lay off teachers to pay for correction officers as more and more poorly educated citizens are filling the prisons.(5) For the fiscal year 1994-1995 the dollar for dollar tradeoff for building prisons at the expense of college is $926 million increase for prisons and $954 million decrease in college construction. No where is this deplorable situation more evident than in California and the state of Florida. Between 1980/81 and 1996/97 California corrections budget increased by 847 percent while higher education increased by 116 percent. In florida between 1984 and 1994 the corrections budget increased 209 percent and the total education budget increased by 21 percent. In 1997 Florida spent more on 56,000 prisoners than on 303,000 university students. Of the additional $8 billion increase in Florida's general revenue from 1986 to 1996 public higher education received $602 million, while corrections received $1.05 Billion..

We have reached the scandalous juncture in American history when as the rich becomes more wealthier all the poor can look forward to is prison and perpetual slavery or ultimately , state execution. It is a horrific burden to contemplate the fact that if you are a black youth the chance of you spending most of your adult life in a concentration camp in the "home of the free and the land of the brave is three to one. How can anyone continue daily life without a sense of moral outrage is one of the most remarkable phenomenon of current American society. To be aware of the fact that : (!) African Americans comprise of 12 percent of the population and comprise 13 percent of drug users, 55 percent of all drug convictions and 74 percent of all prison sentences. (2) Of the 102 defendants against whom the U.S. Attorney General has authorized seeking the death penalty since its reinstatement in 1988, 80 percent are members of minority groups.(3) All three branches of the federal government instead of taking measures to redress the racism embedded in the death penalty and sentencing policy in general have intensified their effort in the implementation of more draconian laws and not to speak out in opposition against these injustices should be considered engaging in complicity in crimes against humanity. Today the United States Government stands in defiant violations of articles 1, 3 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 11, 21, and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and we should continue to seek redress through the United Nations and other national and international forums available.

1. Andrew Hacker "Paradise Lost New York Review of Book May 13, 1993, 33

2. John Eckhouse "Pay Disparity Threatens the United States", San francisco Chronicle, June 5, 1989 C1

3. Lester C. thurow " A surge in Inequality" scientific American May 1987

4. U.S. Department of Education(1996). Digest of Education Statistics (1996)

5. See The Justice policy Institute February 1997 report