Rather than join a majority of nations that no longer practice the death penalty, the USA has chosen to lag behind much like it does in healthcare.
The backwardness of both are connected, though, and are hurting Black people in a major way.
A cruel experiment is now even more disastrous: death penalty states have been hoarding drugs they can use to execute people, after drug companies refused to let their products be used for executions. But now those same drugs are needed for a different, crucial reason.
Health officials are now pleading to access these stockpiles of execution drugs - because they could instead be used to help coronavirus (COVID-19) patients!
Sedatives, paralytics and more can be used to treat people. The question is: does killing come before saving lives?
25 states still practice the death penalty, despite it being both racist and outdated. Now that they don’t want to share these needed drugs, we have to ask yet again why this country invests so much in criminal justice and so little in public health. The answer is clear.
If death penalty states valued life, they would invest more in education, healthcare, and other resrouces that prevent crime on the front end!
Pouring money into policing, prisons, and executions is a product of the white supremacist criminal justice system that values harming us over saving lives.