According to Osho, the death penalty is barbaric revenge, doubling the original crime without reviving the victim. He rejects all punishment, arguing it hardens offenders and reflects an uncivilized society. Crime stems from psychological imbalance; offenders require compassion, treatment, and societal support in therapeutic settings, not jails, so they can heal, regain dignity, and reintegrate.
Don’t kill or punish people who do wrong—help heal their troubled minds so they can become whole and rejoin society.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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…
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…
Your whole legal system is a revenge system. The society punishes a person because he was disobedient, because he did not follow the crowd, because he was not part of the mob. He tried to be an individual on his own. He was playing his game according to his own rules. Revenge is not going to help, because you are doing the same crime that the criminal has committed. Of course, you have the support of the whole society; so nobody calls your punishment a crime. But any unprejudiced mind can see what you are doing. A man commits rape. A man commits robbery. A man commits murder. Certainly something has to be done. But not punishment. Because the man who commits rape simply means he is sexually unsatisfied. And your society has not given him a chance to be sexually satisfied. Mohammedans are allowed to marry four wives.
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.
Beloved Osho, what will be the legal system used in the new commune until all of its members are totally conscious? Will there need to be a system of punishment and reward?
You will be surprised to know that just a few days ago a cartoonist was put into jail in the contemporary, educated city of Madras, because he has printed a cartoon in a magazine with the caption that the man who looks like a pickpocket is a cabinet minister; and the man who looks like a dacoit, is the prime minister. There were two men in the cartoon. Immediately, he was caught by the police -- and this is called democracy! One cannot even joke, one cannot even laugh. He has not named anybody -- but all your politicians are pickpockets, are dacoits. They also need psychiatric treatment, they also need sympathetic psychiatric nursing homes. They have to be cured of their politics. Politics is a disease. Man has suffered from many diseases and he has not even been aware that they are diseases. He has been punishing small criminals…