With the criminal and most degraded class - with those who
are actuated by violent passions and hereditary taints, the
class by which most murders are committed - the death
punishment would seem to be useless as an intimidation or an
example.
With the majority it is more than probable that it exercises
a strong and beneficial influence. As no mere social
distinction can eradicate innate instincts, there must be a
large proportion of the majority, the better-to-do, who are
both occasionally and habitually subject to criminal
propensities, and who shall say how many of these are
restrained from the worst of crimes by fear of capital
punishment and its consequences?
On these grounds, if they be not fallacious, the retention of
capital punishment may be justified.
Secondly. Is the assumption tenable that no other penalty
makes so strong an impression or is so pre-eminently
exemplary? Bentham thus answers the question: 'It appears
to me that the contemplation of perpetual imprisonment,
accompanied with hard labour and occasional solitary
confinement, would produce a deeper impression on the minds
of persons in whom it is more eminently desirable that that
impression should be produced than even death itself.
