Does the Death Penalty Work?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Tuong_Nguyen
On Dec. 2, Mr. Nguyen, an Australian citizen, was executed for drug trafficking in Singapore. Claiming that he was trying to repay a debt for a family member, he attempted to smuggle high quanities of heroin from Aussie to Thailand and got caught in the airport in Singapore.
Even though he confessed, he still received support from Amnesty International and the Australian government in his plea for clemancy.
Much has been made of Singapore's use of the death penalty, especially in drug trafficking cases. Typically Singapore will catch the courier, but not the drug boss. Even in this case, Mr. Nguyen was a first time offender. Singapore's response is essentially we don't care about who runs the drug business - we just don't want this mess coming through our country.
Aussie PM John Howard had this to say about Mr. Nguyen's execution:
"I don't believe in capital punishment, he was a convicted drug trafficker and that is to be wholly condemned, [but] I hope the strongest message that comes out of this, above everything else, is a message to the young of Australia. Don't have anything to do with drugs. Don't use them, don't touch them, don't carry them, don't traffic in them and don't imagine for a moment, "for a moment" that you can risk carrying drugs anywhere in Asia without suffering the most severe consequences."
In other words - "You're cool here, but if you carry drugs anywhere else in Asia... you are just screwed."
I don't know about you (I am against the death penalty in practice, but not in theory), but it looks like Singapore got her message across.
another tale spun by ColeTrain @ 10:08 AM
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3 Comments:
The problem with the law Matt is that it criminalizes possession of property. This is no different than if Fidel Castro imprisoned or executed someone for killing a cow without government permission (which he has) or jailing someone for possessing a handgun (as they do in Chicago and DC). The worse thing is that they did it to a foreigner, and as a foreigner myself, I will not travel to Singapore for fear of some security guard or airport employee deciding to plant or smuggle drugs through my briefcase when I get on the airline. Singapore and Thailand needs to change their laws, but for reasons other than AI thinks.
I don't know Rapp... cows and guns aren't drugs. Singapore spends a lot of time looking at the West (even in using British standards for hangman rope length) and they correctly see drugs as a huge catalyst for violent crime here.
Their position of don't bring your crap here or you are dead makes a lot of sense - especially given that Mr. Nguyen in this case confessed to the crime and did intend to actually traffick the drugs and not use them.
I am not saying such draconian measures would work in the US - but Singapore is in the enviable position of trying to stop the problem before it gets too big to handle.
Note that Singapore also has a mandatory death penalty for "certain firearms offenses." Rapp really had better stay clear.
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