Death penalty is not the answer

Death penalty is not the answer

Context

The focus must be on enhancing rape conviction rates and taking steps to rehabilitate and empower survivors

What has happened?

Amid belligerent demands for capital punishment for rapists, on Sunday the President signed an ordinance that introduces the death penalty for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12. But this clamour for introducing the most stringent punishment has conveniently sidestepped the more logical criticism of the systemic failures in addressing increasing sexual violence against women and children

Why capital punishment is not the answer?

• Decreases chances of survival of the victim: Stringent anti-rape laws like, the death penalty are perceived not to be deterrents but measures that further instigate rapists to do more harm to the victims
• Severity not an adequate deterrent: Severity of law is an adequate deterrent to crime being committed is a highly contested one, given that brutal rapes in India have not decreased despite enforcement of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 — a piece of legislation which prescribes the death penalty and life imprisonment for sexual assaults that result in death or the victim being reduced to a persistent vegetative state
• Patriarchal undercurrent: The populist knee-jerk “solutions” to curbing sexual violence are highly patriarchal which overemphasise the sexual aspect of the assault and reinforce the stigma attached to rape

Issues which need to be addressed

• Delay in police action: Unwarranted delay by the police in filing missing person complaints and registering written complaints of sexual assault survivors
• Insensitive agencies: Such harassment tends to come under the spotlight only in extreme cases, such as the one where a child, after being sexually assaulted and left bleeding, was kept waiting for hours at a civil hospital in Gurugram in March this year
• Low conviction rate: It is precisely this which contributes to the culpability of rapists and nurtures the growing impunity with which sexual crimes are committed. This is a reality well captured in National Crime Records Bureau data that show high figures of repeat sexual offenders.

What will work?

For the wheels of justice to start turning, it is essential to recognise that the crisis lies in the precise manner in which the existing criminal justice system unfolds

• Enhancing conviction rates: India’s growing rape culture is best reversed by enhancing conviction rates through reforms in the police and judicial systems, and by augmenting measures to rehabilitate and empower rape survivors
• Greater allocation of state resources towards the setting up of fast-track courts
• More one-stop crisis centres
• Proper witness protection
• More expansive compensation for rape survivors, and an overhaul of existing child protection services