Simply saying that you won’t believe a study simply because it was done by an economist (actually “roughly a dozen recent studies” by economists) is lazy.
I’m open to seeing the flaws in the research. Like I said, I’ve spent most of my life anti-death penalty. But, I’m also open to altering my opinion when new data comes in.
Well, I’ll take a shot. The study linked in the Times article is correlational, but both the study and the Times article are claiming causation. The study finds that in a given region in a given year, when the execution rate increased, the murder rate dropped. It also finds that the reverse is true. When the rate of commuted death penalty sentences increases (in a given area in a given year), the murder rate increases.
Let’s assume these findings are accurate and replicable and real. That suggests there’s a correlation, but it doesn’t say anything about causation. In his intro Mocan says, “We find statistically significant relationships between homicide and executions, commutations, and removals.” Which his data supports. He then says, “Specifically, each additional execution (commutation) reduces (increases) homicides by about 5…” At that point he’s claiming causation, which his data does not support.
The problem with correlational data is that often some third factor (or factors) is ‘causing’ the correlation in the variables you’re tracking. For example, if a study found that national credit card debt is higher in December and January than it is in June and July, that clearly doesn’t mean that heat causes frugality. Mocan’s findings could mean that executions reduce the murder rate, or it could mean that some unknown third factor, like higher budgets for law enforcement and the penal system, lead to both lower murder rates and higher execution rates.
If he believes that death penalty statistics are affecting criminal behavior, how is the pool of potential murderers getting this information. I have no idea how many people have been executed in my state or how many sentences have been commuted, so how do I factor that into my internal ‘should I kill somebody’ cost-benefit analysis?
You are confusing the deterrence effect on others, with the reduction in murders if the killer him/herself is let out to possibly kill again.
The death penalty has no deterrent effect on other killers, because most murders are committed on impulse, or by people who are convinced they will never be caught no matter what (ie they are stupid). It’s been shown time and again that deterrence (for any crime) comes from the perceived likelihood of being caught, not the severity of the punishment if caught (within certain boundaries, of course - “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”).
The state should not kill for the reason that it is purporting to be a superior moral agent to the one who kills (or indeed commits any other crime). Fine, throw them away for life (literally - that takes care of the recidivism argument), but never ever kill anyone.
I’m not confusing them at all. These studies are claiming that between 3-18 murders are prevented by deterrence on others not that the executed criminal would have otherwise himself killed between 3 and 18 people. Your statement that the “death penalty has no deterrent effect” seems to be very much in question.
From the linked article (bolding mine):
"“The evidence on whether it has a significant **deterrent **effect seems sufficiently plausible that the moral issue becomes a difficult one,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has frequently taken liberal positions. “I did shift from being against the death penalty to thinking that if it has a significant deterrent effect it’s probably justified.”
Professor Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in their own Stanford Law Review article that “the recent evidence of a deterrent effect from capital punishment seems impressive, especially in light of its ‘apparent power and unanimity,’ ” quoting a conclusion of a separate overview of the evidence in 2005 by Robert Weisberg, a law professor at Stanford, in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.
“Capital punishment may well save lives,” the two professors continued. “Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life.”"
Dumbguy, you might be right or correlation vs. causation. I’m making no claim that the data is conclusive. But, the data is interesting enough that I believe that out and out claiming that there is no deterrent effect is not quite right. And if there is a deterrent effect, I have to rethink my position on the issue.
Do you have a link to anything stating the recidivism rate for murder is 67%? As it happens , I work in the criminal justice system. In every study I’ve read, those convicted of various homicides have one of the lowest rates of recidivism, even when recidivism is defined as a rearrest for any crime. My own experience bears this out. You have to remember, most people convicted of homicide are not serial killers or drug dealers. Plenty of them got into a fight, and the other person ended up dead, or they drove so recklessly, or neglected a child so badly that when someone died, they ended up being convicted one type or another of homicide.
For example, in this Dept of Justice report http://ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf , ( the most recent I could find online) recidivism is defined variously as reaarrest , reconviction , resentenced to prison, or returned to prison with or without a new sentence ( for example, a parole or probation violation) within 3 years of their release in 1994. One part does specifically address people released and rearrested for the same crime
Exactly, doreen.
>Do you have a link to anything stating the recidivism rate for murder is 67%?
Well, this is embarrassing, but I can’t find any now. I thought I read this in two almanacs but now I can find one that says 6.6% and can’t find the other. I think I’m just wildly off base. I did find several references to an overall recidivism rate of around 60% for ALL crime, hardly the same thing.
So, sorry for stupidly started a misleading thread with bad information!
>Fine, throw them away for life (literally - that takes care of the recidivism argument), but never ever kill anyone.
This is an interesting point, though. I do see in my “The World Almanac 2002” a listing for the Average Sentence for Homicide of 15 years, and Average Time Served of 7 years. If by “throw them away for life” you mean trusting the system to keep a murderer away from society forever, and not release or parole them or let them escape, or for that matter kill somebody in prison who might be there for a pretty minor offense or by mistake, then we don’t necessarily have a way to trust the system.
That’s a world average? It seems incredibly low, but recall that in countries with the death penalty prison sentences for homicide will by definition only be for the less serious cases (or rather those with some degree of justification or other extenuating circumstance) so that drastically reduces the average.
They should not be in the same prison as minor offenders.
We do not and should not trust the system, which is why there are avenues of appeal.
You failed to note the counter-quotes in that same article:
Why then do countries with the death penalty not have lower murder rates than others? Why do US states that halt or reintroduce the death penalty not see a dramatic shift in murder rates? I maintain that most murders are spontaneous, or done with the perceived certainty of not being caught, and so deterrence is not relevant. No-one thinks "well I would murder him if I was going to go to prison for 40 years, but since they’ll execute me I won’t. "
And, as I said before, the state must adopt a superior moral stance to the criminal or lose moral authority and just become another playa, just as parents must not break rules of morality they enforce on their children.
I think you’ve got that wrong. I think you’ve misplaced a decimal point there.
I’ve been debating the Death Penalty for years. There was an oft-quoted study which put the arrest figure at, IIRC, 6.6%. And that is not in itself a meaningful figure for several reasons.
for a start, arrest does not = guilt. Hey there was a murder committed during a robbery, the cops arrested and questioned someone with a record of similar crimes. Maybe they did the same to 100 ex-cons, and only one of them was actually guilty, or maybe none of them were and it was a new guy.
Also, the sample size was so small that one arrest could make a swing of several percent.
anyway, I’ll try and dig up the report sometime, but 'm going to bed right now,
The recidivism rate is nowhere near 60%.
As for the contention that each execution prevents several murders, how do you explain the places that have abolished the death penalty without any rise in the murder rate?
Whatever the recidivism level of murderers who are imprisoned, it is higher than among those who are executed. The recidivism rate of those executed is ZERO.
When a man knows he will NEVER, EVER, be released from prison, and will suffer no consequences for murder other than a few more years tacked onto his 300 year sentence… then you have given him a license to kill guards and other inmates.
Shannon Agofsky killed a friend of mine, in a very brutal way. Tortured him to get the security codes for a bank alarm, then duct taped him into a chair and threw him, alicve anc conscious, off the Number 10 bridge into Grand Lake of the Cherokees. For that, he recieved a Life sentence.
http://www.ocolly.com/issues/1997_Fall/970905/stories/sentence.html
Since that time, he has been sentenced to death for the murder of a fellow inmate. In a recent interview he stated that he works out and waits for the guards to make a mistake… leave him where he can reach another prisoner… so he can “try my hand”. He is currently awaiting execution.
A false argument. There will always be a maximum sentence, beyond which no further punishment is possible.
When a man knows that he will be executed and will suffer no consequences for murder other than another death sentence on top of his death sentence, then you have given him a licence to kill guards and other inmates.
There you are, as I said. Under sentence of death, and still announcing his intention to kill again.
Is this supposed to help your case?
I have seen men sentenced to hundreds of years. If you are saying there will always be maximum sentence, then those men had not reached it.
As for Shannon Agofsky, he killed while serving a LIFE sentence. He now no longer has the capability of killing, as he is sitting on death row, isolated from other prisoners… and soon, hopefully, he shall never have any possiblity of ever killing again.
Apples and oranges. We have guns in the US. We have all sorts of confounding variables that make such a comparison irrelevant.
That’s exactly what these studies DO show:
“The studies try to explain changes in the murder rate over time, asking whether the use of the death penalty made a difference. They look at the experiences of states or counties, gauging whether executions at a given time seemed to affect the murder rate that year, the year after or at some other later time. And they try to remove the influence of broader social trends like the crime rate generally, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system, economic conditions and demographic changes.”
You can maintain all you like, but the data is all that matters. Is the data potentially flawed? Yes. All data is open to interpretation. But, looking at the data and analyzing it is better than sticking to something that seems right and declaring that “deterrence is not relevant” with nothing to back it up.
This is a fair argument, but an entirely separate one from whether there is a deterrent effect. There appears to at least be sufficient data that someone simply stating that there is no deterrent effect should re-examine the issue. Like I said, the data is potentially wrong, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore it because we don’t like it.
cite? The quote you provided (where from?) doesn’t have anything to do with that.
Can you show a study that compares deterrence in death penalty vs deterrence in 40 year sentences?
The data is perfectly available to all. Many countries in the last 150 years or so have abolished the death penalty, with life imprisonment being the maximum sentence. If the DP deters crimes that prison fails to deter, then you would expect a rise in crime immediately after abolition. It doesn’t happen. They always experience pretty much the same crime level before and after abolition.
you can theorize all you want to, but actual practical experience shows that prison is just as good a deterrent as the DP.
Ask and ye shall receive though with a pdf warning. (bolding mine)
“We find statistically significant relationships between homicide and executions,
commutations and removals. Specifically, ** each additional execution (commutation)
reduces (increases) homicides by about 5, while an additional removal from death row generates about one additional murder**.”
Right, I haven’t studied it in detail, but a glance through it reveals this on page 15:
Right, so they ESTIMATE the variables in their equation, and come up with the number they want. With different estimates they would have come up with different answers.
But their guesses don’t actually follow real life. Again I say, many countries have abolished the death penelty. Can you show ONE instance where this was followed by an immediate rise in crime?
From the author of that study (in the linked NY Times article):
“I personally am opposed to the death penalty,” said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives.”
Seems to me he got the answer that he DIDN’T want.
Again I say that other countries are irrelevant. There are already enough confounding variables within a country to make it a complicated thing to study. Add another culture with other gun laws and trial systems, and the study becomes essentially impossible.
My point was not limited to the US. Here in Australia we abolished the death penalty in 1967. By your thesis murder rates should have jumped up the next year, as the deterrence was reduced.
But this chart (C3.10, scroll about 1/3 of the way down) shows there was no such jump. Murder rates decreased from 1915 to the 1940s, then increased until the late 80s, then decreased again. The rate in 1968 is actually lower than that for 1967. A bit further down is this quote:
Rubbish. You are not comparing two different countries with different variables and different gun laws. You are studying THE SAME country with only one variable changed, and all other things left the same.
You aren’t comparing UK to America, you’re comparing UK with DP to UK without DP, France with DP to France without DP, Canada with DP to Canada without DP and so on.
Does crime in a country increase after abolition, all other things being equal? That’s the only question. And I’ve never seen any credible evidence that it does.