On Sunday 8th September 2024 I ran an 18 mile fell race around the Peak District National Park to raise funds for Reprieve.

Reprieve campaign to end the use of the death penalty/capital punishment around the world. They also offer legal assistance to people on death row awaiting execution.

https://reprieve.org/uk/

I believe that the death penalty is an abhorrence that should be stopped immediately. I am against it for the following reasons:

1) Mistakes are made, justice systems are corrupt, states sentence people to death because they challenge their power. Innocent people can - and many have been - sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit. Political prisoners have been killed because they protest against a regime they believe to be unjust and/or exploitative - and often they are correct in that analysis.

2) When harmful and/or heinous acts are committed by individuals they are a signifier that society itself has a sickness. The use of the death penalty reduces the likelihood that a society will introspect upon itself and take the collective responsibility that will encourage these events not to happen again. Without that reflection, it may even make harmful acts more likely.

3) Despite what advocates of the death penalty say, the death penalty is not a deterrent to harmful behaviour. Neither are tougher/longer prison sentences.

4) No one and no organisation has the right to end another person's life - unless categorically requested by the individual e.g. through assisted dying of the terminally ill.

5) All governments can be, and routinely are, tyrannical. A state should not therefore have the power to execute nor believe that it has the right to this power. I am also a pacifist who wants war to be made illegal.

6) Some countries execute individuals for crimes committed when they were children. I find this morally repugnant.