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Capital Punishment Is Not A Better Than Video

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Not a MyNAP member yet? Register for a free account to start saving and receiving special member only perks. M any people have strongly held views on the deterrent effect of the death penalty. To others it is equally self-evident that there is no deterrent effect due to the rarity of the imposition of the death penalty and the emotionally charged circumstances of most murders.

Both views may have some merit, as the deterrent effect of the death penalty may vary across persons and circumstances. This chapter provides an overview of the difficulties of empirical analysis of the potential deterrent effect. The difficulties arise both from conceptual issues about how the death penalty might deter and from statistical issues that must be successfully overcome to measure the size of that effect, if any.

The magnitude of the deterrent effect of the death penalty, including the possibility of no effect, will depend both on the scope of the legal authority for its use and on the way that legal authority is actually administered. It might also depend on such factors as the publicity given to executions, which are beyond the direct control of the criminal justice system.

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One reflection of this complexity is that research on the deterrent effect of capital punishment in the post- Gregg era has itself examined diverse issues. Some studies have attempted to assess whether the legal status of capital punishment is related to the homicide rate. And some of these studies have addressed whether statewide homicide rates are associated with. Other studies have examined whether homicide rates are associated with moratoriums on executions ordered by governors or courts. There is also a distinct set of studies that have examined whether the frequency of and publicity given to actual executions are related to homicide rates.

One part of this research has examined whether execution events seem to affect homicide rates; another part has examined whether homicide rates are associated with various measures of the probability of being executed for homicide. Our overview of key challenges to making an empirical Thwn of the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is necessarily selective.

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There is an enormous research literature on the mechanisms by which legal sanctions, of which the death penalty is but one, might affect crime rates. There is also a very large research literature on the econometric and statistical methods used to estimate the effect of the death penalty on homicide rates. We focus on those issues that are particularly important to the reviews and critiques of the panel and time-series literatures in Chapters 4 and 5respectively.

These issues include data limitations, factors beyond the death penalty that contribute to large differences in murder rates across place and over time, possible feedback effects by which homicide rates might affect the administration of the death penalty, how sanction risks are perceived, and the concept of a sanction regime.

There is also a literature that examines the argument that executions may actually exacerbate homicide rates through a brutalization effect. This argument has been studied using the same statistical tools as deterrence, although the mechanism being studied Puhishment different. With one exception, all of these are time-series studies, and we review them in Chapter 5.

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Going back at least years to the legal philosophers Cesare Beccaria in Italy and Jeremy Bentham in England, scholars have speculated on the deterrent effect of official sanctions. At its most basic level, deterrence is typically understood as operating within a theory of choice in which would-be offenders balance the benefits and costs of Capiral. The potential costs of crime are comparably varied. Crime can entail personal risk if the victim resists see, e. It may also invoke pangs of conscience or shame see, e. In this report we are mainly concerned with the response of would-be offenders to the sanction costs that may result from the commission of murder.]