Could the death penalty make South Africa safer?

Here are the arguments for and against We need a criminal justice system in which women can report violence and expect action – families can expect investigations, victims can expect support, witnesses can testify safely and perpetrators know that the state has the capacity and determination to find them.

The question confronting South Africa is not whether we can become more punitive, it is whether we can become more effective.

The families of those murdered do not need political slogans. They need arrests, prosecutions, convictions and justice.

South Africa does not need to bring back the gallows to prove it takes murder seriously. It needs to build a justice system from which murderers cannot escape. That is how we protect life.