NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Committed to ending the death penalty and creating a new vision of justice

Why end the death penalty?

The death penalty does not keep us safe

Andre Smith lost his son Daniel, pictured with his sister, to murder. Andre says the death penalty does nothing to heal families or change the societal forces that lead to violence.

If we want to prevent violence, we should focus on restorative justice and ending racism, poverty, and child abuse — not an inhumane punishment that creates more grieving families and traumatized children.

Any response to crime, but especially the extreme punishment of death, should be rooted in evidence-based strategies to make society safer. However, more than three decades of studies on deterrence and the death penalty show no link between murder rates and capital punishment.

The 23 U.S. states that have abolished the death penalty do not have higher murder rates than those that carry out executions, nor do countries that eschew the death penalty. In North Carolina, the death penalty is still on the books but executions stopped 2006. Yet, the murder rate showed no corresponding uptick. 

Our close work with death-sentenced people, as well as families who have lost loved ones to violence, confirms that there are more effective ways to prevent murder. The vast majority of those on death row committed unplanned crimes arising out of mental illness, poverty, substance abuse, and trauma. Societal efforts to remedy those problems, along with the racial inequities that underlie them, would have a far greater impact on public safety. Many surviving family members also say the death penalty fails to bring them healing, and they ask that the state not kill in the names of their loved ones. Practices like restorative justice are designed to address harm and bring healing, rather than focusing on retribution.

We must end the inhumane death penalty because it serves only to perpetuate violence and suffering.

Right now in North Carolina:

  • Studies that claim to show a link between the death penalty and crime deterrence, which have been touted by some NC politicians, have since been debunked.
  • In a survey, police chiefs from across the country ranked the death penalty at the bottom of a list of effective crime-fighting tools. 
  • A 2018 study found that nations that abolish the death penalty tend to see their murder rates decline.

Stories

Case File: Jean Parks

She lost her sister to murder, and learned that the death penalty only creates more grieving families

“I immediately began imagining what it would be like to have a loved one about to be executed by the state, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. The feelings I imagined were so similar to what my family experienced after Betsy was killed: grief, rage, helplessness.”
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Case File: Andre Smith

After his son was killed, he recommitted to helping men in prison transform their anger

“We erroneously think that if we take this guy’s life, then I have closure, and society has closure. But it doesn’t stop the killing. Yeah, that guy won’t kill again because he’s dead, right? But there will be someone else.”
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