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Negative Effects Of Capital Punishment

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In 2015, 15,369 people were murdered in the United States Of America. This number could have been reduced if the government would have sentenced more murders with a life sentence to their death. Capital punishment will save lives, make society feel like justice is being served, and will make society safer.
Capital punishment is the legally authorized killing of someone as punishment for a crime. Doing so causes a deterrence in similar crimes. “Capital punishment is the extreme punishment that will create fear in the mind of any sane person,” Hugo Adam Bedau mentions in his article, ‘Capital Punishment and Social Defense’ (Bedau).
From 1974 to 2004, a study took place using publicly available FBI sources. The study shows there seems to be an obvious negative correlation in that when executions increase, murders decrease, and when executions decrease, murders increase. Another piece of credible proof comes from Justice Stewart of the supreme court. He stated “...but for many others the death penalty undoubtedly, is a significant deterrent” (Dezhbakhsh). Paul H. Rubin, PhD, Professor of Economics at Emory University wrote in his testimony, “The modern refereed studies have consistently shown that capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect, with each execution deterring between 3 and 18 murders” (Dezhbakhsh).
Hashem Dezhbakhsh, PhD, Professor of Economics at Emory University, and Joanna Shepherd, PhD, Associate Professor of Law at Emory University, wrote in their July

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