Capital Punishment Is Deterrence For Crime

The death penalty is a controversial topic that people have been debating for a number of years. We often hear ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ The death penalty can be interpreted by this maxim, which means the murderer should get punished to match their crime. If you kill someone, then you should pay back with life. In the article “The Death Penalty Is a Deterrent,” the author, George E. Pataki argues that the death penalty is “a necessary tool to fight and deter crime” because it creates a feeling of fear of death to murderers (Pataki 10). Since Pataki took office he immediately reinstated the death penalty; “the violent crime has dropped 23%” (Pataki 11). Pataki uses the data to reflect the significant decline of the crime rate.

Why is the death penalty used as a means of punishment for crime? Is this just a way to solve the nations growing problem of overcrowded prisons, or is justice really being served? Why do some view the taking of a life morally correct? These questions are discussed and debated upon in every state and national legislature throughout the country. Advantages and disadvantages for the death penalty exist, and many members of the United States, and individual State governments, have differing opinions. Yet it seems that the stronger arguments, and evidence such as cost effectiveness, should lead the common citizen to the opposition of Capital Punishment.

The idea of capital punishment deterring crime is difficult to determine; some could rationalize that the death penalty should in theory stop potential murders from committing crimes. However, this rationalization has never been concretely proven. The research into capital punishment’s effect on deterrence is immense; however, the majority of research on this issue has differential findings. Although some research suggests conclusively that capital punishment deters crime, others found that it fails to do this. Understanding deterrence, the death penalty, and the results of

Those who believe that deterrence justifies the execution of certain offenders bear the burden of proving that the death penalty is a deterrent. The overwhelming conclusion from years of deterrence studies is that the death penalty is, at best, no more of a deterrent than a sentence of life in prison. The Ehrlich studies – which took

Another issue related to the subject involves whether or not capital punishment actually deters criminals from committing crimes. Most people think that the death penalties primary function is to deter others in the future from committing similar crimes. There is evidence that at times capital punishment does deter. However, there are those or cite evidence or opinion that the capital punishment does not achieve its desired effect. The majority of this paper will focus on whether capital punishment actually deters crime.

Capital Punishment has ended the lives of criminals for centuries. People have debated whether the government should have the power to decide one person’s life. On one side, people think the government does not have the right to play God as well as believe that the death penalty is simply unethical. Forty-eight percent of a half sample survey stated that life imprisonment was a better punishment for murder while forty-seven percent stated that capital punishment was a better punishment (Newport). However, capital punishment should be enforced throughout the country to help deter crime, benefit the economy, and ensures retribution.

“A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. The study, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Crimonology, concluded, “There is overwhelming consensus among America’s top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty.” A previous study in 1996 had come to similar conclusions.”

More than two centuries ago, the death penalty was commonplace in the United States, but today it is becoming increasingly rare. In the article “Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?”, Diann Rust-Tierney argues that it should be abolished, and Joshua Marquis argues that it should not be abolished. Although the death penalty is prone to error and discrimination, the death penalty should not be abolished because several studies show that the death penalty has a clear deterrent effect, and we need capital punishment for those certain cases in which a killer is beyond redemption.

The question of the death penalty has been subject to heated debate on if it serves in deterring criminal activities. Through exploration into findings of several studies, it would be possible to validate whether capital punishment has a deterrent effect on crimes. Various studies are explored with the objective of understanding which side of the debate is stronger. The findings of this study will be important in informing relevant personnel on whether to continue using the penalty or not. The structure of the paper is as follows: Introduction section s, Literature review section, hypothesis statement, definition of terms and references.

The death penalty is one of the most controversed punishments in the United States. According to The Death Penalty Information Center, 88% of criminologist do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent. According to deterrence theory, criminals are no different from law abiding people. Individuals settle on their choices taking into account the net expenses and advantages of every option. There is a basis provided for analyzing how capital punishment should influence murder rates, according to the deterrence theory. Throughout the years, a few studies have shown a connection in the middle of executions and reductions in homicide rates.

The concept of deterrence means that people should be punished to set an example for others. One assumption is that if a particular punishment is placed on offenders, it will keep them from committing others crimes. The next assumption is keeping others from committing crimes. According to Amnesty USA, different studies have shown different stances on whether or not the death penalty has an effect on crime. Other studies have shown that Over 80 percent of those polled believe that the present research does not support a deterrence effect for the death penalty (dealthpenaltyinfo.org).

Last but not least, from a sociologic perspective, capital punishment does not work as intended, to deter crime rate, rather, it might brutalize individuals, at the same time does nothing good to the victim’s family other than brutal vengeance. The origin of death penalty is served as a vehicle to put a warning for those potential future criminals that such kind of behavior will lead to death. However, so far, no clear evidence can be seen that capital punishment, as a mechanism of deterrent, actually cut down the local crime rate. Ironically, a reversal trend was found by Death Penalty Information Center (2010) in the USA that the death penalty leads to an increase in local murder rate. To die might be too easy for the mindless murderers. Also, for the relatives or friends of criminals put into death through capital punishment, they are more likely to be

Recent research studies argues that the death penalty has significant deterrent effects, supporting the use of capital punishment. In particular, American constitutional legal scholars Cass R Sunstein and Adrien Vermeule presented their 2005 study, “Is Capital Punishment Morally Required? The Relevance of Life-Life Tradeoffs,” which supports the notion of capital punishment as a deterrent. Sunstein and Vermeule’s study specifically presents the argument of the morality behind the death penalty’s significant deterrent effect, in light of recent research studies that they found to support capital punishment as a deterrent. In support of capital punishment being a deterrent, Sunstein and Vermeule cite Hashem Dezhbaksh 2003 study, “Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? “, which used data from 3,054 U.S. counties between 1977 and 1996, finding that the murder rate decreased significantly due to death sentences and executions (Sunstein and Vermeule 9). This can be justified as deterring crimes because she found the correlation between the murder rate decreasing and death sentences and executions increasing. However, she does not acknowledge that other factors can influence this type of correlation. Despite this, in that same study, it was found that on average, for each execution performed there were 18 fewer murders (Sunstein and Vermeule 9). This evidence is compelling because it notes that each execution brought on less capital offenses. It would seem as if the

The United States has a long history with the death penalty. Every perspective of the death has been argued, from the religious aspect of the government playing “God” to the death penalty being a solid form of crime deterrence and everything in between. This paper will show the death penalty is an outdated form of punishment and an expense that cannot be justified due to the lack of crime deterrence.

In contrast, the question of deterrence can be answered objectively using common sense and statistics. By analyzing different arguments for and against the death penalty, such as the "fear of death" myth, the cost of the death penalty, and the racial and economic bias of the death penalty, it can be shown that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent of crime.