Christa’s mother drank heavily and used drugs while she was pregnant with Christa resulting in brain damage which caused Christa’s bipolar disorder.
When Christa was 14 months old, she suffered a seizure. Her mother refused to leave the bar to take her to the hospital.
After Christa was born, her mother left Christa and her brother without food, crawling in dog feces, while she drank with her boyfriends.
Her mother allowed her boyfriends to beat Christa and twist her nipples. One beat Christa with a belt and sexually assaulted her.
When Christa tried to commit suicide after that, a psychiatrist told her mother Christa was severely depressed and needed help. Her mother denied Christa further help and her bipolar disorder was not treated.
When Christa was raped at 11 by a man in the neighborhood, her mother denied it until she developed an infection and the man was arrested.
When Christa was raped at 17, one year to the day before she committed murder with her boyfriend, Christa’s mother didn’t care.
But Christa was happy to see her mother in court during her trial and all she wanted was a hug.
Yes, Christa committed an extremely heinous murder at 18. But I just wanted to share a little bit of her story with you — especially for all the folks rejoicing at her execution.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/28/tennessee-woman-execution-christa-pike
Countries who droped penal death have seen the number of terrible crimes reducing. I don't think there is a single example where their number have grown. There are hypothesis to explain it.
Also, the only way to prevent a large abuse of penal death is to keep convicted offenders in jail for a long time before their execution ; which negate the economical argument. It was not acceptable on a moral point of view, but it is not even cheaper.
Something costy and not efficient should be replaced by something cheaper and more efficient. Especially when the second is better on a moral point of view.
countries who dropped penal death convictions are more likely to have early intervention programs because their government is focused on social benefits over corporate profits.
just because they have banned death penalties does not mean that it reduced "terrible crimes".
You are right that nothing proves that droping penal death reduces the crimes. There could be no link between both, it could be a pure coincidence happening in the hundred countries droping it.
Also, and despite a constant populist pressure in each of this countries, very few have reintroduced it (and most of them fastly droped it back again).
Of course, some may have droped it out of diplomatic pressure more than for their population... but still, it brings benefices. Sorry, I mean the coincidental effect on crimes is observed ; and so at the very least droping penal death does not rise the numbers nor severity of crimes.