According to Osho, the death penalty exposes humanity’s lingering barbarism and unconsciousness: a degrading, idiotic practice that proves civilization remains unreal. It is not true punishment—no one who cannot give life has the right to take it—and its irreversibility collides with fallible courts, where innocence has no proof. Even life imprisonment is a slower, crueler death.
Killing people as punishment shows we’re still cruel and fallible, so instead of death or lifelong cages we need wiser, compassionate justice.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, would you please tell us more about what the sufis call "adab"? Is it a "tariqa"... A method that extends beyond the physical presence of the master, becoming part of the innermost being of the disciple and reflecting, in every action of his daily?
Radha Mohammed, yes, adab is a tariqa, a method. It is the beginning of something very immense, of something utterly incomprehensible to the intellect. It is the first step of a great eternal pilgrimage. To be with the Master is simply a lesson in how to be with God. That's why down the ages the Master has been called "God". It is very symbolic, it is a metaphor. The word "metaphor" is beautiful. Meta means beyond, phor means going: that which takes you beyond. The Master is a metaphor -- he takes you beyond himself. He is just a beginning, a jumping-board. To be with the Master is nothing but a discipline in how to be with God. God is not visible, the Master is visible; it is easier to learn from the visible and then move to the invisible. Have you looked into children's books? We have to make…
Do you support the death penalty?
No. I don't support the death penalty for the simple reason that if somebody murders a man and you kill that man as a penalty... He has committed a crime, and now the society is committing the same crime as a penalty. By your penalty the man who has been murdered is not going to come alive. By your penalty, whereas there was only one man murdered now there are two men murdered. This is sheer nonsense. The person who has murdered... You are not being fair; you are simply taking revenge. If you were fair, you would send the murderer to a psychiatric home to be taken care of. Something is wrong in his mind, something is wrong in his psychology for which he is not responsible. He can be treated. Not only am I against the death penalty, I am against all kinds of punishment, because punishment does…
The situation has completely changed. The people who were putting the whole community against law have left. It feels cleaner. And if those twenty people come by themselves or are brought by the police back to America, our love for them will remain the same. But what they have done they have to suffer the consequences of it. It is their action and the result has to be accepted. I want to inform the government that we will be now in a strange position. We are not against the state, against the government. The group who was against has left. Now we will be all for the state and for the government and for the law even against those people. We do not want to support any illegality.
Civilization has not happened? And a man of the calibre and intelligence like H G Wells thinks so. It has not happened yet. We are still living in a barbarious age. Perhaps we have better clothes, better houses, polite nice manners; beautiful masks to hide our faces; but deep down, there is the animal who hankers for revenge. It is strange to see that still there are countries where death sentence is legal. If a man has murdered someone, and you think it is a crime; certainly it is a crime. Nobody has the right to destroy somebody else' life. But what you are doing? You destroy that man's life. And I don't see the logic, because if this man's murder, crucifixion, was going to revive the other man, then too there was some logic in it. Instead of one man dead, now there will be two men dead.
Evil would disappear—but to fill the world with paralysis would be the great evil. They would be dead. And this is what has been done up to now. Fear gives you a stroke. Because of fear your limbs become rigid; your consciousness ceases to be dynamic. The dynamism is lost; the energy of your life ceases to be dynamic. Your life-energy becomes bound, frozen. As if a river has stopped flowing and become a small, closed pond—stagnant, going nowhere, remaining in itself. It rots; it does not flow. Up to now ethics and sociology have been producing paralysis in people through fear. Paralysis is not auspicious. However moral you may appear lying in paralysis, if you think, you will think immorality; if you think, you will think sin. Paralysis will stop your body, but not your mind. Your mind will roam like a madman.