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Examples Of Deterrence Justification

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Deterrence justification is the reasoning of punishing criminals in order to set an example and decrease the crime rate. A common punishment that is defensible under deterrence justification is the death penalty. According to the data on the Executions and Murder Rate graph, there is a correlation between the number of executions that were carried out and the murder rate over a rate of fifty years. However, the data of the graph exhibited other variables (confounding variables) that could have affected the initial two. The confounding variables that affect these two variables include policy changes made to reduce crime, the criminal landscape, the number of states that allow the death penalty, and how many are actually carried out. The deterrence …show more content…

Capital punishment comes at a hefty price. A lot of tax dollars go to this supposed “justified deterrence” that is intended to reduce the rate of murder and crime. The money could be put to better use, such as reforming the criminal justice system and put funding into low-income neighborhoods and programs for at-risk youths. These would be better alternatives to the death penalty. Another point is the level effectiveness of the death penalty. The data on the Executions and Murder Rate graph shows that even though the murder rate rose to an all time high when there was little to no executions between the years of 1965 to 1980, it did not start to gradually decline until around 1995, about fifteen years after the number of executions started to decrease. A lot of time and money is being used in capital punishment without fast-enough results. According to the data on the Executions and Murder Rate per State, 2010 section, the majority of states in this country either have outlawed capital punishment or not had any executions that year. States, such as North Dakota, has no capital punishment and less than 2 (per 100,000) murder rate, while Arizona has the death penalty and a murder rate of more than 6 (per

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