Deterrence Argument

In “How the Death Penalty Saves Lives”, written and published by David B. Mulhausen on September 29, 2014, Mulhausen speaks of the reasons why the death penalty is a proper way to bring murderers to justice. He believes that “some crimes are so heinous and inherently wrong that they demand strict penalties” (Mulhausen). Not only does he believe that the death penalty is useful to set criminals to justice, but he also believes that the enforcement of the death penalty deters crime rates.

Thesis Statement: Although the rivals of the death penalty accept this to be unethical and non-gainful, promoters of the death penalty have ended up being this to be a financially savvy, and morally redress obstruction of future killings.

The “Does the death penalty bring closure to a victim’s family?” article shares how this family believes that the death penalty does not necessarily bring closure, but it brought relief. I feel that providing two different perspectives will cause the audience to be open to my findings and have questions that I will later address in the paper. At the end of the introduction, I will share my ethos on the topic. While I do not have a lot of ethos I can share that I, like the readers, want to understand the topic more as I am now a tax payer and if the U.S. should still use this form of

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

“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.”

All of the research that I have done suggests that the death penalty is not a major source of deterrence for criminals to commit severe crimes such as homicide. In a 2009 survey of America’s top criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology and written by Professor Michael Radelet, eighty-eight percent of the expert criminologists stated that they do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent for criminals to commit homicide. Respondents to this survey were asked to base their answers on research, rather

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.

In this paper, the authors examine how the death penalty argument has changed in the last 25 years in the United States. They examine six specific issues: deterrence, incapacitation, caprice and bias, cost innocence and retribution; and how public opinion has change regarding these issues. They argue that social science research is changing the way Americans view the death penalty and suggest that Americans are moving toward an eventual abolition of the death penalty.

The first argument that I shall contend with is that capital punishment does not deter crime. Opponents of capital punishment say the death penalty is not necessary. Other countries that no longer have the death penalty have not experienced an increase in the number of murders. The idea is that the death penalty does not deter crime. Countries such as Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and Belgium have not carried out executions since the early part of the century, yet these countries have not experienced a rise in crimr rates (Block, 1983). However, deterrence is not the question when you are looking at the retributive value of capital punishment. In short, deterrence can only work if the threat of punishment is combined with the conviction that the forbidden acts are not only illegal and therefore punishable but immoral. Without the conviction of morality, the easily frightened will not break the law, but the fearless will break the law, the irrational will break the law, and all others will break the law.

The thought of deterrence, as a means to stop or even reduce cybercrime seems so primitive. Human beings have been trying to use deterrence to stop everything deemed unlawful by society for ages. Trying is the key word in that sentence. The article spoke on comparing the information security policy breaches to the criminal behavior outside the organizational world. So, let’s compare the use of deterrence to the criminal behavior in society. One of problems with the deterrence theory is the assumption that potential offenders rationally consider the consequences of the act before deciding to commit a crime, which often is not the case (Wright 2010). So, if you apply the comparison between the two, deterrence just doesn’t work. Thank

In the matter of deterrence, the statistics shown by professor Brad Bushman were sufficient to prove the falseness argument that establishes the death penalty reduces the occurrence of homicides compared to states without the penalty, the data was concise and effective on showing the point. Brad Bushman is a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University, the information was taken from an anthology of opinions on the death penalty, however, the original writing from professor Brad Bushman was published in ‘Psychology Today’, a well-known psychology magazine, these facts give Brad Bushman reliability on the topic. The most interesting information on the cite is the statistic itself, showing how much money is spend on death row sentences in the state of California.

Defenders of the death penalty often claim that the execution of criminals will teach others not to do bad, initially decreasing crime rates. This hasty form of generalization statistically proves to be wrong. “When it comes to criminals, Texas has the toughest punishments along with a strict court system. The state of Texas spent four hundred and seventy million dollars in 2001 just for punishing convicts. Despite all that money and stern punishment, the crime rate is still twenty four percent higher than the national average, according to 2003 data” (Gonzales). This supports the fact that tough punishment doesn’t necessarily help crime. Ironically, the harshest state in the U.S continues to house the maximum number of criminal acts. The death penalty, a harsh form of punishment, clearly doesn’t lower crime rate.

Four major issues in capital punishment are debated, most aspects of which were touched upon by Seton Hall’s panel discussion on the death penalty. The first issue stands as deterrence. A major purpose of criminal punishment is to conclude future criminal conduct. The deterrence theory suggests that a rational person will avoid criminal behavior if the severity of the punishment outweighs the benefits of the illegal conduct. It is believed that fear of death “deters” people from committing a crime. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives were at stake. When attached to certain crimes, the penalty of death exerts a positive moral influence, placing a stigma on certain crimes like manslaughter, which results in attitudes of horror to such acts.

An issue that has continually created tension in today's society is whether the death penalty serves as a justified and valid form of punishment. Whenever the word "death penalty" comes up, extremists from both sides start yelling out their arguments. One side says deterrence, the other side says there's a potential of executing an innocent man; one says justice, retribution, and punishment; the other side says execution is murder. Crime is an evident part of society, and everyone is aware that something must be done about it. Most people know the threat of crime to their lives, but the question lies in the methods and action in which it should be dealt with. In several parts of