A Response to H. L. Mencken's "The Penalty of Death"
In his essay "The Penalty of Death," H. L. Mencken wholeheartedly supported the death penalty in the belief only that could provide the catharsis a victimized community needs to fully recover after a brutal killer's dastardly deeds. According to Mencken, anything less than the death penalty "leaves [the community] feeling that the criminal has got the better of society?that he is free to add insult to injury by laughing." But a criminal's escape from the death penalty need not be occasion for his laughter. No murderer or rapist would laugh at the prospect of spending a lifetime up in the Alaskan arctic, futilely chopping away at stone and ice all day, every day, in subzero temperatures, experiencing no joy and having no hope. If Mencken's goal is to "get... more than even" with vicious criminals, then banishing them to a long life of labor and pain would certainly be more effective than allowing them the short life of rest and ease death row would provide.
