THE BAHAMAS. RIGHTS ADVOCATE OPPOSED TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Grand Bahama Human Rights Association Vice-president Joseph Darville said that he did not see anything good being achieved through capital punishment, as it only showed a disregard for the sanctity of human life.
"It has never been proven any place in the world that hanging or capital punishment is a deterrent to murder," Darville said. "This is a more reasonable way of dealing with an individual. To punish someone is to have them incarcerated and deprived of a long-life of freedom to make recompense for wrong doing. However, when you cut off a man's head, you liberate him so there is really no punishment as such.
"In fact violence begets violence and we must look at murder as violence and whether an individual does it or the state does it, it is one and the same. Of course the state has the legal authority to commit this type of violence, but in terms of its social and psychological impact, it has the same impact as that of an individual because it demonstrates the lack of the recognition of the sanctity of human life."