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Due to recent feedback about my previous columns, I've decided to explore a darker issue - the death penalty.
This Sunday I listened to a former chaplain from a Texas prison talk about his experiences while working with death row inmates before and up until the moment of their executions.
Prior to the event, I had a difficult time coming to a conclusion about my position on the topic or a solution to this issue.
If a person murdered someone close to me, I think I would support the idea of capital punishment. But this mentality is not in line with the rest of my philosophies at all, and is actually quite primitive.
The death penalty dates back centuries ago in numerous cultures. The fact that we are still applying it today does not show much evolution on the part of society, especially with the leaps and bounds we've made in psychology, science and consciousness.
Employing this method of punishment does not get to root of the problem one bit. It only erases the person and leaves the damage. On the other hand, prisons are so overcrowded, and letting these murderers rot in cells also just eats away tax dollars - not that the death penalty is an inexpensive method either. I was at a loss.
But then my perspective changed.
Once I listened to Reverend Carroll Pickett speak about his distressing experiences of sitting in the room with wrongfully accused young men strapped to gurneys, approaching their deaths. I never knew how many people on death row are wrongfully accused, but there is a tremendous amount, according to Pickett, and that's why his current mission is to travel around and support the abolition of capital punishment.
Not only are people wrongfully accused "murdered by the state," but 98 percent of them were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the crime and just made a horrible mistake, Pickett said.
"But they can change. We want them to rehabilitate," Pickett said.
Another perspective I never considered was the mindset of the people who have to perform the executions. On execution days 267 staff members at the prison where Pickett worked were taking tranquilizers to get through the day.
Obviously, this isn't a solution if it takes the life of people who haven't done anything wrong. And it's clear humans weren't meant to deal with this if they have to numb themselves to get through a day at work.
Sorry to kill the mood by bringing up such a morbid topic, but this lecture shed a whole new light on the topic for me, and I encourage you to check out Pickett's book, "Within these Walls" to learn more.
Sonja can be reached at
featureseditor@theorion.com
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