Sentencing for Life: Zimbabweans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty

By Dr Masimba Mavaza

Zimbabwe has joined the growing positive drive to wipe out the death sentence in the world by abolishing it. It has always been a very sharp double edged affair. Witnesses, in the trials which ends up in death sentences suffer as well. Any normal human being who serve on death penalty trials is likely to endure prolonged distress as a result of determining whether someone should live or die. This duty of making such a decision is left in the hands of God and becomes a very difficult duty for those who are not God. Every execution leaves a family behind a son or daughter who doesn’t understand why their parent was executed, a grieving mother who will never hear the voice of her child again. Theirs are among the hidden stories of capital punishment. This does not in any way forget the families of the victims.

We understand the [victim’s] family, the suffering they have been through,but another family will not want to lose theirs as well. Eye for an eye makes the world blind.
The death penalty’s impact reaches far beyond the victim and the executed. All who cross its path shoulder the burden of participating in the death of a human being, while the system creates a whole new set of victims who are left to grieve in silence. Many people are now having a belief that a per­son sen­tenced to life in prison for mur­der will be walk­ing the streets of Harare one day.

It should be noted that there is an effec­tive alter­na­tive to choke the life out of human beings in the name of pub­lic safe­ty. That alter­na­tive is just as per­ma­nent, at least as great a deter­rent and – for those who are so inclined – far less expen­sive than the exhaus­tive legal appeals required in cap­i­tal cas­es. That alter­na­tive is life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. So the convicts who have been lucky to have their sentences commuted to life will be seeing the four walls of prison till their death.

Contrary to the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom that most Zimbabweans whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port the death penal­ty, the comments of many shows that more peo­ple in this coun­try would pre­fer alter­na­tive sen­tences that guar­an­tee both pro­tec­tion and pun­ish­ment over the death penal­ty. Death penal­ty sup­port was becoming a minority opin­ion when the pub­lic is pre­sent­ed with a vari­ety of alter­na­tive sen­tences. In these few days while people are getting used to the new sentencing changes they are unaware that the length of impris­on­ment embod­ied in these alter­na­tives will be the norm.The fail­ure of exe­cu­tions to achieve more than a spec­ta­cle has raised the ques­tion: Could Zimbabwe live with­out the death penal­ty? Are there alter­na­tives to deal with the type of crim­i­nals who are cur­rent­ly sen­tenced to death? Would the peo­ple be sat­is­fied with those alternatives?”

After abolishing the death penalty in America in 1976, it was brought back after crimes of murder skyrocketed. The death penal­ty has brought lit­tle but frus­tra­tion to both pro­po­nents and oppo­nents alike. The evi­dence of racism, of inno­cent defen­dants, of costs and delay con­tin­ue to plague America’s recent exper­i­ment with the pun­ish­ment of death. The fail­ure of exe­cu­tions to achieve more than a spec­ta­cle has raised the ques­tion: Could America live with­out the death penal­ty? Are there alter­na­tives to deal with the type of crim­i­nals who are cur­rent­ly sen­tenced to death? Would the American peo­ple be sat­is­fied with those alternatives?

However Zimbabwe is a different state legally.
At the moment the approval rate demon­strates that most Zimbabweans were will­ing to give up the death penal­ty if cer­tain strin­gent sanc­tions are enforced. The abstract sup­port for the death penal­ty drops sig­nif­i­cant­ly when people were giv­en a choice between cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and sen­tences which assure lengthy incar­cer­a­tion and com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim.

One of soci­ety’s best kept secrets is that the length of sen­tences which peo­ple would sup­port over the death penal­ty are already in place and func­tion­ing in most vases in Zimbabwe. People are urging the courts to employ a life sen­tence in which there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole or amnesty. For the abolition to be accepted courts must employ a life sen­tence in which parole is nev­er pos­si­ble. The major­i­ty of Zimbabweans have tak­en a very strong posi­tion on an issue about which they are sub­stan­tial­ly unin­formed.

From all indi­ca­tions, Zimbabwe could be safer with­out the death penal­ty and would real­ize an enor­mous mon­e­tary sav­ing as well. Judging by the crime rates in other countries that have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and insti­tut­ed alter­na­tive sen­tences, the absence of the death penal­ty would cause no rise in the mur­der rate. Hundreds of mil­lions of dol­lars and thou­sands of hours of court time would be saved by replac­ing the death penal­ty with alter­na­tive sen­tences. The mon­ey saved could be devot­ed to crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures which real­ly do reduce crime and vio­lence and thus are the true alter­na­tives to the death penalty.

Public Opinion and the Death Penalty
After independence many Zimbabweans opposed the death penal­ty than favored it.Executions were halt­ed in 2005 even though courts still imposed death sentences. Today, a new phe­nom­e­non is emerg­ing from the people after the abolition of the death sentence. Support for the death penal­ty drops when peo­ple were giv­en the choice of strin­gent alternative sentences.
Judges should be given the choice of a sen­tence which guar­an­teed resti­tu­tion and no release for at least 50 years, this could cause death penal­ty sup­port to drop to zero support.

We should bear in mind that there will always be a strong desire on the part of the pub­lic for pro­tec­tion from those who have com­mit­ted soci­ety’s worst crimes. There is also a pref­er­ence for con­nect­ing pun­ish­ment with resti­tu­tion to those who have been hurt by crime.
Why is it that peo­ple who sup­ported the death penal­ty were will­ing to aban­don that sup­port in favor of alter­na­tive sentences? The answer may lie in the fact that peo­ple who sup­port the death penal­ty nev­er­the­less retain seri­ous doubts about it which are trig­gered by some of cap­i­tal pun­ish­men­t’s recur­rent prob­lems. Also, peo­ple are unaware of the sweep­ing changes that have occurred in the actu­al amount of time which con­vict­ed mur­der­ers will have to serve for their crimes.

Most peo­ple express doubts about the death penal­ty when pre­sent­ed with the defence Act. Many feared that the issue of politically motivated crimes in the appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment raised some or seri­ous doubts about the death penalty.
The per­cep­tion of political injus­tice with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, was not strong and weakened by the fact that not even one politician or political prisoner is rep­re­sent­ed on death row. So this fear in itself became loud sounding nothing.

The strongest doubts, how­ev­er, were raised by the prospect that inno­cent peo­ple could be exe­cut­ed. The quest­tion of inno­cence raised doubts in many about the death penal­ty.
Some stud­ies in the United States have con­firmed that many who have been con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal crimes, and even some who have been exe­cut­ed, were innocent. Because many cas­es have result­ed in the exe­cu­tion of inno­cent peo­ple it has become a serious thorn in the flesh.

The claims of inno­cence are almost nev­er review­able and if are reviewed it becomes a useless thing as the appellant will be probably.
It is sober­ing to recall that our President was once on the death row.
His inno­cent life might well have been sac­ri­ficed and the same is undoubt­ed­ly true of some who are on death row today.

As the num­ber of death row inmates across the coun­try con­tin­ues to reached record highs, and as the pace of exe­cu­tions accel­er­ates, the prob­a­bil­i­ty of inno­cent peo­ple receiv­ing the death penal­ty increas­es. This, too, will like­ly increase the doubts which peo­ple have about this ultimate punishment. With the devel­op­ment of prison sen­tences in which parole is restrict­ed either for a sub­stan­tial num­ber of years or for­ev­er will surely strengthen the abolishment of the capital punishment. As a response to vio­lent mur­ders,judges should always use a lengthy sen­tence before parole can even be con­sid­ered. The per­cep­tion that a mur­der­er con­vict­ed of a cap­i­tal crime will be back on the streets in sev­en years if not giv­en the death penal­ty is totally inaccurate.
This will be a sig­nif­i­cant change from what we have been doing all along.

With the guaranteed life in prison we will have less murders.

The international community should continuously
monitor the growing trend of life imprisonment as
an alternative sanction for the death penalty, and
aim to identify examples of where this sentence
is not compatible with international human rights
standards and norms. Zimbabwe fits in this international community principles.
States should undertake a process of reviewing
their criminal legislation to ensure that life
imprisonment may only be used for the “most
serious offences”. States should review the
maximum length of time prisoners sentenced
to life must serve in prison, and should adopt
and implement principles of fairness and
proportionality into their sentencing practice.

The ministry of Justice should engage in debate and dialogue as to how best to protect the rights of those
sentenced to life imprisonment as a vulnerable
category of prisoner, including upholding their
rights to adequate living facilities, healthcare,
and access to rehabilitation programmes.
Reference should be made to the prohibition of
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole,
prolonged solitary confinement, and the obligation
to equal treatment of prisoners including those
serving a life sentence.