How might the death penalty prevent crime?
The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is the execution of criminals by the state for committing heinous crimes such as rape and murder.
A major purpose of criminal punishment is to conclude future criminal conduct. Justice is about enforcing consequences for one's own actions to endorse personal responsibility. We cannot expect anyone to take responsibility for their own actions if these consequences are not enforced in full.
It is believed that fear of death deters people from committing a crime, for example most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew that their actions could lead to the death penalty. Today, on the other hand, he who has committed murder can't be sentenced to death penalty and therefore he would probably neither be deterred from committing further crimes.
McAdams, a professor of Political Science at Marquette University, points out what is most evident in the facts concerning the death penalty. The death penalty erases criminals from our world and therefore prevents them from committing more heinous crimes. Even if the death penalty does not show any evidence of reducing crime or murder, then at least one more criminal is removed from our society, reducing number of criminals who might commit crimes in future.
Ron Sievert, assistant district attorney in Grayson County, Texas, equates capital punishment as "A means of social control based on fear ( )." The Death Penalty is considered to be the final judgment in the justice system. It is seen as the severest of punishments because it takes away a life of human being. Death penalty serves as a way to warn society that some actions will not be tolerated and just consequences will be incorporated within the law. Fear of one's own death certainly has an deterring effect on would-be criminals.
There was time when in Africa the ratio of rapes committed on young children has greatly risen. One reason for the increase in attacks on young ones is that the rapists think they are less likely to have AIDS. Those rapists are less likely to attack grown women because they fear the lethal consequences of AIDS. This situation demonstrates that violent criminals are truly capable of being deterred by lethal consequences for their actions, because they are not immune to fear. If the death penalty was just as consistent, lethal, and as unstoppable as the AIDS virus, criminals would be more than willing to cease their criminal activity.
The most extensive investigation ever in the USA on deterrence effect of death penalty was published in January 2001, by two professors: H. Dezhbakhsh, P. Rubin and by J. Shepherd. Their research suggests that capital punishment indeed has a strong deterrent effect. Their conclusion is: "In particular, the execution of each offender seems to save, on average, the lives of 18 potential victims. This estimate has a margin of error of plus and minus 10."
The deterrence argument assumes that people committing crimes do so after careful assessing the costs and profits of their course of action, ...
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The most extensive investigation ever in the USA on deterrence effect of death penalty was published in January 2001, by two professors: H. Dezhbakhsh, P. Rubin and by J. Shepherd. Their research suggests that capital punishment indeed has a strong deterrent effect. Their conclusion is: "In particular, the execution of each offender seems to save, on average, the lives of 18 potential victims. This estimate has a margin of error of plus and minus 10."
The deterrence argument assumes that people committing crimes do so after careful assessing the costs and profits of their course of action, and choosing of their own will the course of action where profits outweigh costs in the best ratio. In other words the deterrence argument assumes that potential criminals think rationally while deciding whether to commit crime or not.
From this we could conclude that death penalty shouldn't have any deterrent effect on criminals that commit crimes-of-passion and shouldn't recede number of murders by intimates. Contrary to this belief, although murders by intimates and crime-of-passion murders may be less premeditated than other murders, they are nonetheless deterred by capital punishment. In addition,executions deter murders of both black and white victims.
However, I think that for even the most rational potential offender, he or she has to be at least marginally aware of information needed to carry out arithmetics of benefits and costs ratio for murder.
Because it is essentially impossible for the society either to know or accurately estimate the proportion of capital murders for which executions have been carried out, it is most unlikely that the death penalty could deter even "deterrable" potential offenders. In all likelihood, only those executions receiving significant media coverage are likely to have any deterrent potential
In other words, executions appear to deter crime only through their announcement, for example, if potential criminals do actually witness an execution (through media) in short time before their planned (or not) criminal activity, then they will be less eager to commit a homicide.
I think that more important than public executions for the country that uses the death penalty is to consistently inform its citizens about what crimes could have the death penalty as a consequence. Beginning in the nine-year school, all students should receive information about legal practice and what crimes imply the death penalty and they should be given reasons for both the usage and resignation from using the death penalty. Such knowledge might prevent them from committing crimes they would commit if they didn't know the consequences of their activity.
If people, while growing up, are constantly taught law and order and hear that the society has the right to sentence people to death for certain crimes it is possible that some, even for this reason, will deter from committing such crimes.
What is interesting is that the rates of crime-of-passion and intimate murders crimes previously believed to be undeterrable all decrease in execution months. I think that what has great effect on the scale of deterrence is the time spent on death row before execution: the shorter the wait on death row, the greater the deterrence. That's why, the capital inclination to elongate death row waits may immensely lessen capital punishment's deterrent effect.
Sometimes the abolitionists point out that some countries or states (USA) without death penalty often have lower frequency of murder (per 100.000 population) than countries and states with death penalty. We should then be aware that most states and countries without death penalty only have few inhabitants . But there are states and countries without death penalty which have considerably higher frequency of murder than some places with death penalty. Among states without death penalty Michigan with 9,9 millions inhabitants is the very largest. And Michigan's frequency of murder is much higher than most of the states with death penalty, also higher than Texas, the state with most executions. The frequency of murder in Michigan are 6,7 per 100.000 population (2001). Sweden, with a population of 9 millions, have 2 murders per 100.000 population.
Here can be mentioned that the US capital, Washington DC, with no death penalty, have 41 murders per 100.000 population (2001)! There's almost no cities in US with such terrible high frequency of murders
I can mention here that when England and Wales abolished the death penalty in 1965 the murder-rate curve went up in a significant way. When South Africa abolished the death penalty in 1995 (in times of peace) the crime-rate curve shot sky-high. In Houston, Harris County, with population over 3 millions, in Texas, the most active execution jurisdiction in the USA the murder rate has fallen 73% since executions resumed in 1982: from 44 per 100,000 in 1981 to 12 per 100,000 in 2000.
The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the statistic investigations that have been made is that they scientifically neither can prove or disprove that the death penalty has an important role in deterrence. The abolitionists eagerly point out that there are several investigations that supposedly confirm the hypothesis that the death penalty does not deter. But then we can point out that there is no investigation proving that death penalty has no deterrence effect nor that it deters with great effectiveness. It is misleading to claim anything else. What is more, statistics cannot show us how many crimes have been prevented thanks to the preventive nature of death penalty.
Some people can sometimes refer to countries that have abolished the death penalty without any increase of the frequency of murder, and come to the conclusion that the death penalty has no special deterrent effect. But supporters of the death penalty can refer to other countries that have abolished the death penalty and where the frequency of murder have risen, or point out countries with death penalty where the crime rate is very low (for example Singapore and Japan).
From a scientific point of view neither is right. The movement of the crime rate curve is dependent upon hundreds of factors, not just one. Truly reliable conclusions cannot be drawn from statistics, curves and tables. The causal connection is too complex and the opportunities of interpretations are vast.
In itself the death penalty is not something desired. But this awful punishment is forced by a sometimes ice-cold brutal reality. Each country is continuously forced to fight criminal behaviors in every possible way, sometimes it is impossible to avoid using the more desperate means of preventing crime. The death penalty should be viewed as one (and certainly not the most favored) instrument among many in the fight for a more righteous and better world.
