When we are disgusted by the unnecessary pain inflicted even on those who’ve inflicted unnecessary pain, we are disgusted with retribution. When we are outraged by the horror of a botched execution, we are outraged by the use of punishment to make an example out of its victims.

It is time to take the final steps on the path we’re already taking.

It is time to abolish the crime of punishment.

But if we can’t face the man on his knees, and if we don’t want to see ourselves as the man holding the pistol, should we be killing at all? Clayton Lockett was tortured to death last night so we could pretend we are somehow better than the man holding a pistol to the base of another man’s skull. If we are fine with killing, then why do we not kill the right way? If killing the right way troubles you, are you really fine with killing?

The particular incident sparking national attention this time was a lethal injection in McAlester, Oklahoma that failed to immediately kill its intended victim. Instead, convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett died — of a heart attack — after 43 minutes spent writhing in pain and struggling to get out the words “Man,” “I’m not,” and “something’s wrong.”

Unsurprisingly, Amnesty International calls it “one of the starkest examples yet of why the death penalty must be abolished.” Even the White House — headquarters of worldwide mass drone assassinations — made a point to publicly state that the execution “fell short” of the standard for humane executions.

We might ask ourselves, though, why we find such a horrible death for such horrible crimes repugnant. If we think punishment should be retributive and proportionate to the crime committed, we ought to welcome particularly cruel punishments for particularly cruel crimes. If we think punishment should serve as a deterrent, we ought to welcome such gruesome, excruciating deaths in hopes that they make crimes like those committed by Lockett less likely.

In fact, we arguably passively accept more cruel punishments already.

As jokes in popular culture reveal, it’s socially understood that a prison sentence involves condemning a convict to a hell of constant abuse from both guards and fellow inmates. This looming threat lasts much longer than the 46 minutes of pain Lockett experienced, leaving permanent psychological damage. Even when sentences end and inmates leave with their bodies, they don’t always escape with their souls.

None of this is to downplay what happened to Lockett in McAlester, especially considering that his time on death row ensured he went through the torture of prison as well.

The problem is not just that what Lockett experienced was cruel and unusual. The problem is that the all too usual practice of punishment itself — the process of intentionally inflicting harm on another human being for the purpose of inflicting harm — is irredeemably cruel.

If this is where punishment has brought us, to systematic killings and mass incarceration, then it’s time to reexamine punishment. We must reflect on what it is we really want out of punishment, and whether or not we can achieve it some other way.

One of the most basic things we want out of punishment is a way to restore respect for victims and their dignity. When a murderer escapes conviction, our anger comes out of solidarity with the victim.

What better way to respond to crime, then, than by demanding restitution for victims or their loved ones? The focus there is placed firmly on showing respect for those harmed, and away from bringing new harm to the criminal.

The most obvious objection to such a proposal is that no amount of monetary compensation will ever bring back the dead, or undo an assault, making full justice impossible under restitution. While this is unfortunately true, it is also true of punishment — even if Lockett had suffered for three hours, his victim would still be just as dead.

The difference is that with a restitutive model of justice, we can at least go some way toward healing the wounds of crime. With a punitive model, no steps are taken in that direction at all and new injustices are committed.

When we look back at the history of criminal justice, most of us mark progress by the abolition of the cross, the rack and the guillotine. We take it as a mark of our humanity that our modern debates about lethal injections are about how we can punish with the least additional pain possible. When we fail in that goal, as Oklahoma did with Lockett, we are repulsed. Those who oppose capital punishment take it as a reason to abandon the practice altogether.

Each of these steps that we praise backs away from the principles used to justify punishment.

When we are disgusted by the unnecessary pain inflicted even on those who’ve inflicted unnecessary pain, we are disgusted with retribution. When we are outraged by the horror of a botched execution, we are outraged by the use of punishment to make an example out of its victims.

It is time to take the final steps on the path we’re already taking.

It is time to abolish the crime of punishment.

This man, a convicted rapist and murderer, is not someone I plan to mourn. His crimes, which included the rape and murder of a teenage girl, were as heinous as they were repulsive. His death was equally repulsive. Strapped to a gurney, he was injected with an untried cocktail of drugs intended to sedate him, stop his breathing and then stop his heart. The first drug, midazolam, commonly known as Versed, is a short-acting benzodiazepine (similar to Valium) typically used to sedate patients before uncomfortable procedures such as being executed while strapped to a gurney. The second drug, vecuronium bromide, is a particularly nightmarish substance. A paralytic, it blocks the transmissions of motor neurons. Patients who report being awake but unable to move or cry out during surgery are reporting the joys of vecuronium bromide when administered with insufficient sedation. The last drug, potassium chloride, is simply poison that stops the heart. KCl, as it is known, is common fodder for gallows humor in the medical community, with doctors and nurses “prescribing” a fatal injection of KCl to particularly obnoxious patients. Or, as here, fatal doses actually being prescribed.

The administration of these drugs failed to achieve the intended purpose — a clean, antiseptic death. Instead, the condemned man writhed on the gurney, called out and died in apparent agony of a massive heart attack. Clearly, this outcome was unacceptable — the state must kill in a controlled, clean and calm fashion, without embarrassing or distressing drama. Indeed today NPR told me I might find its reporting on the man’s death “disturbing,” presumably because of the writhing, not the death.

What is most curious about this experiment is how unnecessary it is. Millions of data points from killing fields and death camps, from the Einsatzgruppen and the NKVD, point the way clearly to the easiest, swiftest, most painless and cost effective way to kill. Have the condemned kneel. Place the muzzle of a small caliber pistol against the base of the victim’s skull. Pull the trigger once. The bullet destroys the brain stem, killing the condemned instantly. The total price of the execution amounts to a few minutes of the executioner’s wages and the price of a bullet. In the 20th Century, millions died this way. This is the most reliable method of execution known, and why in our data-driven age any other technique is used is a mystery. Or perhaps, it is no mystery at all.

A man on his knees, hands bound, blindfolded, is defenseless, helpless, a pitiful object. We cannot stomach killing this way. We cannot, truthfully, stomach the act of killing at all. Just as we long for remote-control wars and fill the skies with drones, we long for a robotic executioner killing without any of the horror of killing. We do not use lethal injection out of concern for the condemned, but out of concern for ourselves. We long to imagine that “the state” is killing these men and women, and that they aren’t really being killed at all, just antiseptically removed — “destroyed.” So we distance the lethal act from the proof of the deed; first the hangman, who simply pulls a lever, then the electric chair, with its switch, and now lethal injection, done at the press of a button, the same way the Air Force kills Yemeni children.

But if we can’t face the man on his knees, and if we don’t want to see ourselves as the man holding the pistol, should we be killing at all? Clayton Lockett was tortured to death last night so we could pretend we are somehow better than the man holding a pistol to the base of another man’s skull. If we are fine with killing, then why do we not kill the right way? If killing the right way troubles you, are you really fine with killing?

We never notice when the transformation occurs. We don’t even fully realize it until years into our rampage. But one day, we wake up and look into the mirror, and the face peering back at us is unrecognizable.

On Friday, Gawker posted the result of a nearly yearlong investigation into the arrest of a student at Bartlesville Senior High School in eastern Oklahoma. The arrest, approximately four hours before the Newtown shooting, grabbed headlines and shocked the nation — then faded into white noise, like most stories not actually dripping in blood seem to do. The subject: 18-year-old Sammie Chavez, who told friends the day earlier that he was thinking about committing a school shooting.

The article itself is a stunning piece of longform shoeleather journalism by Camille Dodero. It profiles Chavez, his family, and the town of Bartlesville in great detail. It is a heavy indictment of our entire system — education, justice and otherwise.

At the time of his arrest, Sammie Chavez had an ancient .22 with a broken firing mechanism that he had purchased for $15; no ammo; a small amount of marijuana; and several “therapeutic” journals he had been asked to keep by psychiatrists. His bail was ramped up to $1 million from an initial warrant estimate of $200,000, and he faced 10 years in prison on felony conspiracy charges. More than 20 Bartlesville residents submitted victim-impact statements aimed at increasing his sentence to life in prison. Oklahoma state legislators sought to codify that sentiment into law, writing multiple bills to change the mandatory minimum sentence for the crime of thinking nasty thoughts. Children as young as 13 could be tried as adults if any of these bills pass.

Remember, no one was hurt. In very real terms, no actual crime was committed.

The press called Chavez a monster. He was 18, barely holding it together in school, and had a terrible support structure at home. When he mused aloud that he wanted to commit this act of violence, his friends did exactly what they were supposed to do: Friends told someone else; someone else told their parents; parents called the school; school called the cops; cops got a warrant. No questions asked, no offers of help, psychological or otherwise. Throw the book at him. Instamonster. Gold stars and commendations all around.

According to Dodero, “[Chavez] learned about the Newtown massacre from a television in Washington County Detention Center, the Bartlesville jail where police brought him after his arrest. Seeing the news reports, he broke down crying so badly that guards changed the channel.”

Chavez received his sentence in November: 30 months in prison, a $5000 fine and a year of evaluations from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. People from Bartlesville want him locked up longer. Future cases will reflect the “nuance” prosecutors gleaned from dealing with someone who apparently planned a school shooting without having access to the resources for — or the desire to actually carry out — one.

And the rest of us roll on in our “meaningful discussions” about gun control, funding for mental health facilities “that could house someone like Chavez,” violence in popular media, etc. We lament the fact that the system currently in place didn’t notice Chavez before. According to the profile at Gawker, he was a seemingly “perfectly normal teenage delinquent” leading up to his arrest. The entire infrastructure is rotten at the foundation, but according to its rules, everyone did exactly what they were supposed to here, down to the last smug pundit.

We lock our monsters away because we don’t like the fact that we can glean similarities to ourselves from them. We look at their behavior and think, “god, what a terrible human being, why would they do such a thing?” but who among us hasn’t had so much as a terrible thought? Even in passing? We just don’t want to face this.

Earlier this year, I wrote that the occurrence of gun violence was a wicked problem, that it could not be answered simply. I said that even though people would still be raised to love cops and soldiers, praise the wars and accept more casual violence, we could commit to an absurd answer to this wicked problem: we could struggle to teach our own children to reject killing, to reject domination over each other, to reject that systemic violence. It isn’t working. The state, feeding on the anguish of every (domestic) parent who has ever lost a child to the barrel of a gun, is simply going to react more violently every time something like this happens.

It all just needs to stop.

Dear C4SS Readers and Supporters,

Yesterday, May 20th, many communities, especially Moore, OK, were devastated by an EF4 tornado estimated to be more than 2 miles wide.

As many of you may not realize, Oklahoma is the home of many of the writers and volunteers with C4SS.

With more storms on their way, the families of Oklahoma could use all the support and aid they can receive. Every little bit of aid is important. This is where $5 from everyone makes an impact that can change lives. Anarchist activist scott crow summarizes the situation well, “Note to people doing decentralized relief. Just because the state tells you to leave or you can’t do it doesn’t mean you have to listen. Don’t be confrontational. Be creative. The need is great and the state will fail on many levels.”

C4SS fellow, Trevor Hultner, does a wonderful job of summarizing the events in Oklahoma and the following recovery effort:

Volunteers have put together exhaustive lists of how one can send aid or where they can go to volunteer:

• Interoccupy.net‘s #OPOK UPDATE: OKLAHOMA RELIEF
• Moore.recovers.org‘s The City of Moore Recovers
• Moore Oklahoma Tornado Lost and Found Animals
• Infoshop.org‘s Support Oklahoma
• RYOT.org‘s Oklahoma Tornado Victims Fund

Members of Occupy Sandy have begun collecting resources, and volunteers on their way. The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma has set up a donation service; text the word FOOD to 32333 to give $10 to the Regional Food Bank.

If you want to donate equipment and goods to support the recovery effort, please send them to:

Community Action
c/o Oklahoma Tornado Relief
CSBI Building, E-Wing
1155 E Main
Norman, OK 73071

Priority goods for the recovery effort:

1. Work gloves
2. Backpacks
3. Duffel bags
4. Dust masks
5. Respirators
6. Sturdy shoes
7. Huge tarps
8. Bungee cords
9. Any and all clothes of all sizes

Thank you all for your concern and support. Take care of each other and be safe. And always remember, any (good) thing the state can do, we can do better.

P.S. Any updates, additional information or corrections that need to be added to this post, please let us know in the comments below.