Capital Punishment

GIVEN CURRENT LEVELS of crime in America, capital punishment has gained broad popular support as a hoped-for deterrent to the most severe crimes. Unfortunately, experience shows that capital punishment neither effectively deters crime nor saves taxpayer money. Although the Natural Law Party supports a strong penal code, especially for specific, highly egregious violent crimes, the current effort to extend the death penalty to include a wide range of crimes is a desperate public (and highly political) reaction arising from deep frustration with present, ineffective crime-fighting strategies.

The Natural Law Party supports highly effective, proven crime-prevention programs that have been shown to lower crime significantly (see our Crime section). We believe that the national mood will shift away from an outcry for the harshest possible punishment and towards more compassionate solutions once violent crime has been significantly reduced through the Natural Law Party’s prevention-oriented approach. The Natural Law Party would therefore impose a moratorium on the death penalty unless and until our criminal justice system demonstrates its ability to impose this harshest of all sentences justly and fairly.