Facts about Deterrence and the Death Penalty

A report based on a review of over 30 years of research published by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences on April 18, 2012 basically concluded a study on the deterrent effect of the death sentence killing rate It is a defect There is. . The committee concluded that no information on whether the death penalty affects the reduction, increase or homicide rate in previous studies on the effects of the death penalty on homicide. Research notified that the death penalty reduction, increased homicide rate, or the impact on the murder rate should not affect policy making on capital punishment, as it informed the trial that the death penalty would have on the murder. (With emphasis added) Daniel Naggin, a chief criminal expert at Carnegie Mellon University, says: "This conclusion is controversial to some people, but who There is no way to file a death penalty without any basis, how the potential murderer actually looks at their death penalty, the danger of punishment. "

These studies used incomplete or unbelievable models of potential murderer perception and response to the use of capital punishment.

Estimation of the impact of the death penalty is based on a statistical model that is assumed to be unreliable.

In February 2015, the Brennan Justice Center announced a report considering an explanation on the sharp decline in the crime rate in the United States from the 1990s to the early 2000s. The death penalty is one of the possible reasons for researcher's evaluation. The report concludes that the death penalty does not affect the decline in the crime rate. Experience shows that the death penalty is too small to have a measurable impact on declining the crime rate. From the perspective of the death penalty, the existence and use of the death penalty may not be applicable even to legislators in the development of such laws. The authors point out that criminals do not take into account the results of their actions, especially if results such as death sentences are rarely applied. "Many psychological and sociological studies show that many criminal acts are passionate crimes, or that crime is committed only in a ferocious moment based on the current situation." In the past According to the survey, empirical analysis by Brennan Center concluded that there was no evidence that executions affected crime in the 1990s or 2000s. " The report says that declines in crime rates are attributable to various social changes and police activities, but the increase in imprisonment did not affect the 2000s and had little impact on property crime in the 1990s.

Those who believe deterrence to preserve the execution of a specific criminal are responsible for proof that the death penalty is a deterrent. The overwhelming conclusion of years of deterrence research is that the death penalty is at most deterrent and not life imprisonment in prison. Ehrlich's research is widely recognized. Indeed, some criminologists like North Eastern University's William Bowers believe that the death penalty has the opposite effect. We use capital punishment to brutally restrain society and increase the possibility of murder. Even the majority of capital supporters still have little or no deterrent as a serious reason for continued use.

In American society deterrence was always the reason to support the death penalty. Many studies conducted have failed to demonstrate deterrent effect. For example, if the death penalty is actually a criminal deterrent, the state that does not receive the death penalty will have a higher homicide rate. On the contrary, states that did not apply the death penalty showed a continuous decline in the murder rate. In addition, the murder rate in the United States is considerably higher than the European countries that do not allow the death penalty. (Fagan)