Reflections: Pages 16-30

Camus starts this section with a claim that crime does not increase when capital punishment is abolished. Specifically, “in the thirty-three nations that have abolished the death penalty or no longer use it, the number of murders has not increased” (16). With that being said, it becomes clear that there is not a strong correlation between capital punishment and criminality, which goes against everything the French government believed in. If our new assumption is that there is no relationship, why is the death penalty still being endorsed in France? Camus posits that “the condemned is cut in two, not so much for the crime he committed but by virtue of all the crimes that might have been and were not committed” (17). Thus, the State is operating with “the blind hope that one man at least, one day at least, will be stopped from his murderous gesture by thought of the punishment and, without anyone’s ever knowing it, will justify a law that has neither reason nor experience in its favor” (17).

Now, let us turn our attention to the attitudes of those involved in the execution. While the English prison warden feels “a keen sense of personal shame” and the chaplain feels “horror, shame, and humiliation” for being involved in such a primitive act, the executioner has a different mindset (18). For instance, a current assistant executioner has bragged about the job being fun, saying “you could allow yourself the fun of pulling the client’s hair” (18). By referring to the condemned as “clients,” it becomes clear that execution is a sort of sadistic game. Not only is this a sadistic game, but it is a fun sadistic game – fun being subjective, of course. Thus, the reader must call into question the intentions of the executioners. To further reinforce this claim, “hundreds of persons offer to serve as executioners without pay,” demonstrating how capital punishment “may even arouse the impulse to murder,” rather than prevent it (19-20). In other words, “the punishment that aims to intimidate an unknown murder certainly confers a vocation of kill[ing]” (19).

Camus identifies that the true purpose of capital punishment in French society is not to prevent murder but as a way to justify revenge (20). Revenge, according to Camus, is a “punishment that penalizes without forestalling,” which is essentially the “law of retaliation” (20). The law of retaliation is based on the ‘eye for an eye’ principle, and capital punishment extends this rule to be ‘death for death’ to avenge the murderer’s victim. Camus takes an interesting turn in his argument, asserting that even if the death penalty is a “just and necessary” punishment, then “beheading is not simply death … it is a murder” (21). Camus points out that multiple French laws consider premeditated crimes more serious infractions than crimes of passion, but capital punishment is “the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminals’ deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared” (21). Specifically, for there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months” (21-22). Camus asserts that this simply does not happen. Thus, the prolonged, agonizing process of waiting to die “is a punishment more terrible than death, and one that was not imposed on the victim” (22). Camus describes the condemned as a “thing waiting to be handled by the executioners” (23) and as a “terrified animal” (26), demonstrating how this type of punishment leads to inhumane dehumanization. In this way, “two deaths are inflicted on him, the first being worse than the second, whereas he killed but once” (26). This argument goes back to the law of retaliation, illustrating how there is an imbalance between the punishment and the crime.

Camus shifts his argument to consider environmental factors that could increase criminal activity. For instance, Camus highlights the issue of overcrowding in Parisian dwellings, suggesting that this may have heightened tensions among individuals prone to aggression, potentially leading them to commit murder under circumstances they might not have otherwise (27-28). Though Camus believes that these violent actions are unjustified, he claims that the criminals should not be 100% at fault (28). Moving from overcrowding to alcoholism, Camus illustrates how “95 percent of the killers of children are alcoholics,” though the State, instead of addressing the root of the problem, simply goes on cutting off heads into which it has poured so much alcohol” (28-29). Thus, “the State is ignorant of chronic alcoholism” (29-30). Because alcohol impairs judgment, “the real responsibility of an offender cannot be precisely measured” when he is under the influence (30). 

Camus concludes that capital punishment is not what it seems to be. From enabling murder to justifying inhumane revenge, capital punishment must be stopped. Next week, I will delve into the last section of "Reflections on the Guillotine.” See you soon!

–Courtney Bain

Here is an article about the effects of alcohol use on decision-making: https://www.boardpreprecovery.com/rehab-blog/how-alcohol-can-impact-your-decision-making/