Experts Agree: Death Penalty Not a Deterrent
Like many Americans, I have long had an uneasy sense of the death penalty in this country. In order to fully support it, you have to have complete faith in our justice system and in the value of deterrence. Recently the latter has been strongly challenged: A new study shows that 88% of the country's top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide. The study was published earlier this week in Northwestern University School of Law's Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology authored by Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Traci Lacock, an attorney and Sociology grad student in Boulder.
"Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists," relied on questionnaires completed by the most pre-eminent criminologists in the country. Fully 75% of them agree that "debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems." Respondents were not asked for their personal opinions about the wisdom of the death penalty, but instead to answer the questions only on the basis of their understanding of the empirical research.
Given this latest study, it is difficult for me to see any reason for our nation to maintain a policy of executing criminals. Several men and women have been released from prison -- and death row -- over the past decade. Some were just days away from execution. But upon review of DNA and other evidence, they were determined to be innocent. If such a determination had not been made, innocent Americans would have been put to death. Right now, a man who may well be innocent, Troy Davis, is facing execution in Georgia. Seven of nine witnesses have recanted their testimony against him, but no court has ever heard his claim of innocence. Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court may, or may not, intervene to save his life.
Furthermore, the cost of executing a prisoner is far greater than keeping him in prison for life. A recent New Jersey Policy Perspectives report concluded that the state's death penalty has cost taxpayers $253 million since 1983, a figure that is over and above the costs that would have been incurred had the state utilized a sentence of life without parole instead of death.
A number of states are currently considering repealing the death penalty. Just this week, former CA Attorney General John Van de Kamp called for an end to California's death penalty because it would save $1 billion over five years at a time when the state is near bankruptcy. Only three countries in the world -- China, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- execute more prisoners than the U.S. and more than 128 nations have abolished the death penalty.
This latest study validates the need for the U.S. to end a practice that harkens back to the days of the Wild West. If executions hold no value to deter other crimes and if we can't avoid the risk of executing the innocent and if they are overwhelmingly burdening state budgets, why not relegate them to history? To paraphrase an old tune, "Executions? What are they any good for? Absolutely nothing."
Diann Rust-Tierney: The Death Penalty Is Frightening -- and Not Just on Halloween
I'm scared by the real life capital punishment system. As of this week, 139 individuals have been exonerated after being sentenced to die -- and some came terrifyingly close to execution.
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Of course the death penalty deters.
Ms. Abrams has misinterpreted the actual findings of the subject review/survey (hereinafter "Survey").
100% (or 77) of the criminologists agree that the death penalty may deter some. (Question 12)
It is a rational conclusion. All prospects of a negative outcome/consequence deter the behavior of some. It is a truism.
61% (or 46) of the criminologists found some support for the deterrent effects of the death penalty through the empirical, social science studies. (Question 8)
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses (2), find for death penalty deterrence.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life. No surprise.
Statement 6 "The death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides". Nearly 57% (or 43) of criminologists said the statement was totally inaccurate.
How do the authors quantify a "significant reduction" in murders? They don't. Therefore, no one has a clue as to what the authors or respondents meant.
All reductions in murder are significant.
One deterred is significant if it is your child's life saved. Is 2-5 innocents saved per year or per execution a significant reduction? 11-25, 112-210, 1800-2800?
Whether murder rates go up or down, whether they are high or low, there will be fewer net murders with the death penalty and more net murders without it.
Full response
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It isn't only conservatives who believe in the death penalty but enough independents and moderates that Obama can't come out against it nor any Dem running for high office or he would lose. We need to find a way to reach these people. In addition to all the great comments above and reasons to be against state sponsored murder, is the fact that they have yet to find a way that this isn't cruel and unusual punishment.
Okay, how about making sure every one who supports it is made to sit through and witness an execution, start to finish? Or maybe construct an experiment, some variation on Milgram where people were told to administer electric shock, and see what kind of results you get. I have to believe that if it were less abstract and more concrete, people would be very supportive of alternative punishments.
V t THIS STUDY TELLS US SOMETHING ALL OF US, USING ANY LOGIC WHATSOEVER, SHOULD KNOW, THAT THE NATURE OF PUNSIHMENT DOES NOT DETER ONE WHO INTENDS TO COMMIT AN ACT OF VIOLENCE. THE POTENTIAL PERPETRATOR EITHER THINKS HE/SHE WILL GET AWAY WITH IT, AND/ OR DOESN'T GIVE THE PENALTY A THOUGHT. THOSE OF US, LIKE MYSELF, WHO HAVE LOST FAMILY MEMBERS TO MURDER, DEFINITELY RECOGNIZE IT TO BE A FACT THAT THERE IS NO DETERRENCE ARISING FROM A POTENTIAL DEATH PENALTY OR FROM WHATEVER THE PENALTY MIGHT BE. THAT IS ONE OF THE MANY REASONS WE CANNOT SUPPORT THE DEATH PENALTY IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. RATHER THAN AS A DETERRENCE, WE SUPPORT LONG PRISON SENTENCES AS A SENSE OF JUSTICE AND TO PROTECT SOCIETY..
It has been pure fiction to say that the death penalty acts as a deterrence to homicide. This study shows that to be true. This is yet another reason to abolish the death penalty and use the money being spent on it for something useful.
You are right Lisa and what is also interesting and not mentioned in this article is that this was known back in the 1960's and statistics exactly like this led to abolishing the death penalty. Conservatives, known for ignoring facts pushed for it's reinstatement. It seems like the conservatives and their loyal fanatics keep forcing us to learn the same lessons over and over. The real question then, is will conservatives ever learn or are they incapable of it.
With unsolved homicide rates in CA's major cities approaching 60 percent, anyone who would contemplate a crime would be more likely to believe they'd never be arrested than that they would receive the DP. The death penalty is a money pit that makes us less safe by promoting violence, and directing dollars away from community safety.
No, capital punishment isn't a deterrent. President Obama would be the first of every president since Truman to nervously confess that the deterrence concept relies on the notion of “rational actors”, and I would guess the idea of future self-preservation is not foremost on an individual's mind when committing an act eligible for capital punishment or life imprisonment.
That 88 percent figure the study cites of criminologists who say the death penalty isn't a deterrent also happens to be the same percentage of those that were executed in Virginia between 1908 and 1962 who were black.
The truth is that there can be no real justice for murder - it is too egregious a crime for which to be compensated - and the only real solution to crime is to prevent it. Therefore, the focus needs to be on childhood education, protective services, and effective policing, so that we may be confident that our society is doing its utmost to protect itself from violence.
What is more interesting and not mentioned in this article is that this was known back in the 1960's and it was statistics exactly like this which led to abolishing the death penalty. Conservatives, known for ignoring facts pushed for it's reinstatement. It seems like the conservatives and their propaganda keep forcing us to learn the same lessons over and over. The real question then, is will conservatives ever learn or are they incapable of it.
Do we need any more compelling reasons to abolish the death penalty in the U.S. of A.?
A. It's barbaric. For the believer: Is this something that Jesus would do?
B. It could be a mistake. For the ethical: Is it worth the loss of even one innocent life?
C. It's not economically sound. For the budget-conscious: It costs more than life in prison.
D. The bottom line: It isn't a deterrent.
This new study shoots down yet another one of the lame excuses we use to justify murdering people. Do we have any good excuses left?
If not, perhaps it is time we join the rest of the civilized world ... and abolish the death penalty.
What's really interesting about the death penalty is that those states that employ it tend to have the highest percentages of murder rates, especially the in the South. States which do not have the death penalty have lower murder rates. There may be a need to punish capital offenders, but the the death penalty is clearly not the way. And if death penalty states repealed capital punishment, perhaps the savings gained from not having it could instead be applied to improving law enforcement, as well as programs that prevent crime in the first place, such as academic preparedness and job training for economically disadvantaged juveniles. Thank you, Tamar Abrams, for your enlightening article!
I have defended a man on death row and I have served as legal counsel to a parole board. Most of the criminals I met or corresponded with had very low intellectual functioning, mental retardation or borderline mental retardation, and most had a lifetime or drug or alcohol abuse that eroded their intellectual reasoning. I don't think most of them think two seconds ahead and so could not be deterred by the consequence of getting the death penalty. Better to give them life imprisonment and save the state millions of dollars in high-cost prosecutions and appeals.
That is so interesting, Tamar, that you have supported the death penalty in the past. I have too when I was younger. The older I get, the more "spiritual" I have become. Aside from the public policy arguments you raise (doesn't deter, we could execute the innocent, costs too much for little or no benefit), I have come to believe that we are all going to die at some point & at that time, we will face whatever education or justice that lies beyond what we know today. In the broad scheme of things 10 or 20 or 30 years is like a blink in time on the other side. Therefore, I don't see how hastening someone's death on earth will bring about quicker justice.
It's great to hear some of the common death penalty "myths" dispelled. It's unfair for Americans to "support" the death penalty when they're pumped full of misinformation. Thanks for helping spread the facts about how the death penalty system actually operates. Only when we have this information can we have a legitimate position on this important issue.
See Tamar Abrams's Profile
I need to point out that I have had strong feelings both for and against the death penalty over the years. And studies such as the one I cite are important for the vast majority of us who waver on the issue. If I felt it truly were a deterrent, I would find it more difficult to be strongly against it. Like many social issues, it's important for advocates on both sides to appeal to the head as much as the heart and to find evidence-based arguments. This one works for me.
Kudos to the author for writing such a level headed piece -- maybe it will change the minds of death penalty supporters who don't get that no there are no scenarios in which murder (state-sponsored or otherwise) is actually a solution.
"In order to fully support it, you have to have complete faith in our justice system and in the value of deterrence
In order to fully support the death penalty you have to be without a conscience. You have to reject the notion of redemption. You have to accept an unfair judiciary, increasingly militarized police, and abusive prison guards as the norm. You have to keep voting for so-called Liberal political candidates who support the death penalty and increase harsher measures against the accused. You have to turn a blind eye to all the nations that have abolished this heinous practice and how we stand among them. We don't. You have to not care.
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