Sorry, I’m not going to go through six pages to find something that’s already been said (and is general knowledge anyway). To sum up, countries without the death penalty have lower crime rates than countries with it, and states within the US without the death penalty have lower crime rates that states with it. Also, according to a study performed by one of our own posters, the crime rates went down during the time that the death penalty was abolished and went up when it was reinstated.
Now, if you have an alternative interpretation of the facts, please tell us. If you have other facts, please show us. But please don’t embarrass yourself further by harping on about “evil” or whatever you want to call it, while ignoring reality.
Feel free to yell that I make factual claims without backing them up, have no cites to show, etcetera, even though we both know it’s untrue. I don’t really care, and it’s probably the only way you can get out of this thread while still managing to persuade yourself that you didn’t go down with a whimper.
I must be an even bigger idiot than you think. Not only can I not find that proof that the DP leads to more murders posted in this thread, I can’t even find where someone made the argument!
You meant* most * states, right? Not all * states? Because some have posted some stats that show Michigan and Alaska, both non-DP states, have higher murder rates (for most of an 8 year period) than the national average. If the DP leads to more murders, and they don’t have the DP, then why is their muder rate higher than the national average? And a few states with * the DP have rates consistantly far below that average. What’s up with that?
Could it be factors *completely unrelated * to the state’s use of the DP?
mhendo, who has argued throughout this thread, with considerable success, that the DP in not a deterrent, also says this:
and this:
You, yourself, said this:
all of which seems to suggest that the DP is irrelevant to the murder rates because murderers don’t really let the thought of capture and punishment affect their decision to commit the crime.
So, please, in all sincerity, show me something that says the DP leads to more murders, rather than a corelation that might gloss over some of the factors mhendo mentioned earlier…
It would be hard to show the DP leads to more or less murders because America seems to be the only country to have abolished it and then bought it back (yes I know not all states bought it back), but America does seem to have a higher murder rate then other western countries.
I don’t know if this is related to the DP or not but that statistic does not leave me wishing we had the DP.
Ya think? It has been argued that the DP is a deterrent. This is demonstrably false. Since there are factors that do have an effect on the morder rate, don’t you think it would make sense to study those and implement policies (drug and alcohol education and treatment, for example, or early childhood development programs) that are more civil and humane than frying someone? Hell, just about every story I’ve heard or read about someone on death row points out that the subject has a history of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse; was poor; had a substance abuse problem; dropped out of high school; had mental or emotional incapacities; started getting arrested at 10 and thrown in juvie without receiving anything resembling counseling…the list goes on. Now, of course, someone is going point out the small handful of death row inmates without any of those issues while conveniently ignoring the rest of the 500+ people on death row who had serious problems before they were convicted.
Naw, implementing social programs that could help prevent crime in the first place makes too much sense. Damn pinko liberals. Let’s just fry 'em after they commit murder instead.
It has been argued that it is a deterrent. But not by me. I have said specifically that I do not think it is. Itwas then argued on this very page that is was a factor driving the murder rate up. THAT is what I am challenging.
I’m with you on that. While some data may suggest this, I think it’s still inconclusive. Of course, while all such data is inconclusive at best, elimination of the DP for the time being seems the most prudent course, would you agree?
I’m sorry, I somehow missed this post for several days. Will reply to it now. I also apologize for my unwarranted lack of politeness.
I did. So did chique, in post 218. That is, however, slightly beside the point. What I originally said (and later condensed, for typing fatigue reasons, to “death penalty leads to more murders”) was “we’ve shown you the facts, which seem to indicate (and please present any alternative interpretation you may have lying around) that killing murderers leads to more murders”. I wanted to hear your interpretation of the facts.
You’re misinterpreting my statement. I didn’t say, and don’t believe, that the death penalty is irrelevant to the murder rates. I’m just saying the death penalty doesn’t bring them down. I do, in fact, believe that the death penalty brings them up. The statistics I have seen tend to back this up, as chique says.
Why does this happen? Well, I’m no psychologist, but I believe that an overwhelming majority of us, consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, look to society/government/state as a guide, rolemodel, parent. If the state kills people, our threshold against killing people will be lower. If the state incarcerates people, our threshold against robbing people of their freedom will be lower. This is especially true of the people who are being incarcerated, or whose friends are getting killed, ie people who are already criminals.
OK, I just re-read your posts and realized you already know/understand much of what I wrote. You want a specific cite. Unfortunately, most of the statistics I’ve seen come from a couple of Swedish books, which would be little help to you. Give me a little while.
Now, does this prove that abolition of the death penalty in Canada directly led to lower murder rates? Of course not. Nor could any other statistic I could care to show you. We have to interpret the statistics in the most reasonable way. I know my interpretation, which is that the abolition of the death penalty did in fact lead to lower murder rates, and if you have a different one, please tell me.
Whoawhoawhoa…I don’t think the study I did proves that the death penalty leads to a higher murder rate. I think it does a pretty good job, however, of showing that the murder rate will not increase if the death penalty is abolished.
Nor did I claim it did. This was in response to spooje saying that he couldn’t find where anyone made the argument that the death penalty leads to a higher murder rates, which I believed you did, as well as I. If I was wrong, I apologize.
I wasn’t going to revisit this thread, but i thought i’d make a small contribution on the issue of whether executions might actually increase the murder rate.
Potter is a professor in the Department of Justice and Police Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, and this document is a statement he made before Kentucky’s Joint Interim Health and Welfare Committee. His statement is essentially a summary of prior scholarly literature on the subject, and he names the studies he uses as supporting evidence.
Potter starts out with the following:
The bolded section shows that at least some scholars believe that the death penalty actually increases the rate of murder and other violent crime.
In support of this assertion, Potter offers a section called “The Brutalization Effectof the Death Penalty,” where he presents his evidence, which includes:
Make of that what you will. I’m sure you could find some death penalty advocates who would disagree with some of those findings, or with the interpretation of the statistics, but the fact is that there are scholarly studies making the claim that the brutalization effect of the death penalty not only can, but does lead to an increase in murder and other violent crime.
Finally, some people were arguing earlier in the thread that people would be less likely to commit murder if they knew that the punishment for being caught would be death. Here’s Potter’s take on the subject:
Bolding mine. This is what i’ve been arguing all along.
Now, playing devil’s advocate here, what would you all say to the notion that perhaps the murder rate is high in states with the DP not because the DP causes a brutalization effect, but because the crime rates are so high in those states that they feel they have to have the DP? Is there some way to differentiate between the cases?
I have often wondered the same thing, but it seems (at first glance) that the studies cited have controlled for that. To argue your point you’d have to show that states conducting executions normally have higher murder rates in the months when executions occurred. Looking at the broadness of the studies, that seems like a pretty major coincidence.