World Psychiatric Association Releases Report Opposing the Death Penalty for People with Mental Illness or Development and Intellectual Disabilities

In July 2023, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) released its report and posi­tion state­ment on men­tal health and the death penal­ty. The issues addressed in the report include: the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty on pris­on­ers with men­tal ill­ness or devel­op­men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, the over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who have been socioe­co­nom­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al­ized, and the role of psy­chi­a­trists in death penalty cases. 

In align­ment with the prin­ci­ples estab­lished in its Code of Ethics, the WPA said that ​“the death penal­ty should not be imposed on any per­son with men­tal ill­ness or devel­op­men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties and no per­son with men­tal ill­ness or devel­op­men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty should be exe­cut­ed.” Although inter­na­tion­al law does not explic­it­ly pro­hib­it the death penal­ty, there is a spe­cif­ic pro­hi­bi­tion on the use of the death penal­ty against juve­niles, preg­nant women, and peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness or devel­op­men­tal and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. Since 1984, the United Nations has said that reten­tion­ist states should not impose or exe­cute peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness, intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty, or ​“any form of men­tal dis­or­der” due to the ​“lim­it­ed moral cul­pa­bil­i­ty” and their ​“dimin­ished abil­i­ty to under­stand the nature and rea­son for their exe­cu­tion.” The WPA also addressed the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of incar­cer­a­tion and the con­di­tions of death row. 

The WPA rec­og­nizes that the death penal­ty has been dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly applied to peo­ple who are socioe­co­nom­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al­ized. The WPA report includes sev­er­al stud­ies that ana­lyzed the over­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers who have been socioe­co­nom­i­cal­ly mar­gin­al­ized in India, Bangladesh, the United States, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, and Nigeria. In addi­tion, the WPA report includes sev­er­al stud­ies find­ing that most death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have a his­to­ry of var­i­ous adverse childhood experiences. 

The WPA report empha­sizes that a psychiatrist’s role in pre­vent­ing the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty on peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness­es is impor­tant because they help the defense team inform the court how defen­dants are affect­ed by men­tal ill­ness and intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. The WPA also described the roles psy­chi­a­trists may play in the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem that con­form to the WPA Code of Ethics.