How Does Deterrence Really Work?

Jeffrey Dahmer was an infamous serial killer and sex offender. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 21, 1960. Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men between 1978 and 1991. He was sentenced to 15 life terms, but was later murdered by an inmate in 1994. His murders included rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism. Since most of Dahmer’s victims were African American males, many people believed his acts had to do with racism.

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.

“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.”

On the other hand, Greenberg, Reiman, and Gray argue against deterrence and how it is not a leading factor for justifying the administration the death penalty. “Because of the goals that our criminal justice system must satisfy - deterring crime, punishing the guilty, acquitting the innocent, avoiding needless cruelty, treating citizens equally, and prohibiting oppression by the state - America simply does not have the kind of capital punishment system contemplated by death penalty partisans” (Greenberg 1670). Greenberg argues how due to the American system of capital punishment, deterrence is not a factor due to the “infrequent, random, and erratic executions” of this system

However, no individual has ever been able to present any credible evidence that supports the theory of deterrence. Decades of research across the country has failed to produce signs of a higher murder rate in states that have abolished the death penalty. The theory of deterrence assumes that a murderer is examining the costs and benefits of the anticipated criminal act and taking a moment to think rationally. In the United States, the death penalty is only handed down for about one out of every one hundred homicides. A murderer has a greater chance of being killed by the planned victim or in a confrontation with the police, and therefor has no reason to fear the death penalty if there is only a one in a hundred chance they will actually receive it (Jackson, Jackson, and Shapiro 33). Moreover, most homicides are unplanned, impulsive acts and to imply that a murderer is thinking calm and cooly outweighing their options in such an emotionally charged environment is simply idiotic.

Gradually, states are abolishing the death penalty, as it has little to no effect on people involved in dangerous crimes. Thirty-nine states enforce the death penalty and nineteen states have abolished; “Personal involvement with the horrible crime of murder renders the academic arguments for or against capital punishment” (Polites). As many studies have shown, the death penalty also has little to no effect on the crime rate in the country. Many questions people answer address whether they are supporters or opponents of the death penalty and whether they believe it is effective to the US. Both these issues have been ongoing debates for many years. Contrary to some thoughts, life imprisonment without parole has had a bigger effect on inmates simply because they suffer from the feeling of guilt. The US benefits because the cost of the death penalty cost three times more than the cost expense of prison.

People want to feel safe wherever they go, whether it is in their family’s,friend’s or even an acquaintance’s home, and shopping malls, hotels or wherever others go and not be scared by others. Often there are crimes every day and many fear that they don’t want to be involved in it. Often criminals appear nonchalant about what happens to them no matter what they did and their crimes. They don’t seem scared. The death penalty is ineffective at deterring and in some cases, a waste of resources such as money. The deterrence theory is what most people like to believe is to work as intended, to keep others from doing crime though it still happens. People still do crimes nowadays and there are usually some cases on the news of murder, killings and other heinous crimes so in which in this the following will talk about its effectiveness in deterrence, and the death penalty deterrence theory and is it worth the price to keep the death penalty around.

The rigorous examination of the deterrent effect of capital punishment began with research in the 1970s by Isaac Ehrlich, currently a University of Buffalo Distinguished Professor of Economics. Professor Ehrlich's research found that the death penalty had a strong deterrent effect. While his research was debated by other scholars,

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.

While performing an analysis of punishment, the question of deterrence is paramount; it seems inevitable that only good results of deterrence will be able to enact law towards its favor. In fact, death penalty is considered as huge warning to most of the criminal to decrease murder rate. When we evaluate the consequence of capital punishment more deeply, every criminal minded person will be aware of it and will think twice before committing any crimes. If they commit crime even after knowing its consequence, they deserve to die. “Murderers volunteer for the risk of capital punishment, and the punishment they volunteered to risk should be imposed if, in the view of the courts, they are guilty and deserve it” (Van). Edward Koch, former Mayor of New York City, has admitted that, “If the death penalty had been a real possibility in the minds of those murderers, they might well have stayed their hand. They might have shown moral awareness before their victims died, and not after”. Capital punishment also allows the victims to threaten the murderer by simply reminding

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.

Death penalty advocates argue that the execution of convicted murderers deter others from committing murder for fear that they will also be executed, and also that murderers will be incapacitated: once dead, they will have no opportunity to commit additional murders. Death penalty opponents dispute the deterrent effect of capital punishment, arguing that few murderers rationally weigh the possibility that they might face the death penalty before committing a murder. Finally, death penalty opponents do not dispute that execution incapacitates executed murders, but argue that life imprisonment without possibility of parole is equally incapacitating. (Jacob Sullum, Los Angeles)

It is no easier, and is, in fact, more difficult, to reach any type of conclusion when discussing and debating the moral components to this issue.  One the side of those who support the use of the death penalty as a legitimate form of criminal punishment stand the arguments of deterrence, the need for a corresponding punishment, and the acceptance of state protection and regulation by its citizens.  The concept of capital punishment as a deterrent is the law enforcement view towards this issue.  In order to maintain an effective legal system, we must maintain a system of punishment that serves to prevent future criminals from committing violent crimes, thereby saving the lives of law-abiding citizens.  A strictly utilitarian analysis of this argument would yield that capital punishment would be a moral imperative if it were determined that more people were saved by the deterrent factor than were killed by the State.  The modern notion that the punishment should fit the crime dates back to biblical times, when, according to the Bible, God said, "And he that smiteth any man