
{"id":602,"date":"2007-07-19T05:56:22","date_gmt":"2007-07-19T13:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/07\/19\/death-penalty-no-deterrent-to-murder\/"},"modified":"2007-07-19T05:56:22","modified_gmt":"2007-07-19T13:56:22","slug":"death-penalty-no-deterrent-to-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/07\/19\/death-penalty-no-deterrent-to-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Death penalty no deterrent to murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0By Jeremy J. Collins<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though most experts have long dismissed any measurable deterrent effect from the use of the death penalty, a recent AP story helped spark new discussion on the topic.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, some academic studies have purported to find such a deterrent impact. The story cited a 2003 Emory University study which concluded that each execution deters an average of 18 murders. To read the story, one might believe that new life has been pumped into what had largely been a settled argument.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A closer look at the facts, however, reveals that there was very little to the story. The truth is that leading academics have roundly rejected these studies. A rigorous 2006 study conducted by John Donohue of Yale Law School and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Justin Wolfers of the Wharton School of Business and NBER analyzed the same data used in the Emory study and like studies and debunked their conclusions in striking terms: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The view that the death penalty deters is still the product of belief, not evidence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In fact, the researchers found that, if anything, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the evidence suggests that the death penalty may increase the murder rate.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>These dueling findings have a deja vu quality. The studies purporting to find a deterrent effect all build upon the foundation of a 1975 article in which Prof. Isaac Ehrlich claimed that each execution averted eight murders. Economists and social scientists attempted to replicate his findings by using different data and improving on his methodology. The overwhelming majority of such studies found no evidence that the death penalty deters murderers. Indeed, a 1978 panel of experts appointed by the National Academy of Sciences strongly criticized Ehrlich\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work and methodology.<\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on statistics, testified before Congress that the Emory study and similar Ehrlich-inspired studies finding a deterrent effect are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fraught with numerous technical and conceptual errors.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Important among these problems is that the studies \u00e2\u20ac\u0153avoid any direct tests of deterrence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That road would likely not lead to deterrence findings: numerous studies \u00e2\u20ac\u0153show the limits of the assumptions or rationality that underlie deterrence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while others show the cognitive, organic and neuropsychological impairments which characterize violent offenders.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of attempting a direct test of deterrence, the Ehrlich-inspired studies acknowledge that the factors leading a person to murder (or not murder) are complex and numerous \u00e2\u20ac\u201d including socioeconomic variables, crime rates and the efficacy of the criminal justice system in catching, convicting and punishing criminals. The studies purport to isolate every other factor but the availability of the death penalty as punishment for murder. But common sense and respected scientists such as Profs. Donahue and Wolfers tell us that the number of homicides that executions \u00e2\u20ac\u0153can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>When touting superficially powerful arguments in favor of the state executing our fellow human beings, the media and academics have a duty to acknowledge the facts contradicting their claims. These facts include not only that respected academics have rejected claims that the death penalty deters, but also the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00c2\u00a0Murder rates are lower in states without the death penalty. This holds true even when comparing neighboring states.<\/li>\n<li>\u00c2\u00a0While Southern states account for over 80 percent of the executions in this country, they have consistently had the highest murder rate of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s four regions.<\/li>\n<li>\u00c2\u00a0Since 1972, homicide rates in Canada and the United States have moved in lockstep, yet in that period, Canada has not executed a single person and the United States has executed over 1,000 people. When homicides go down in the United States, they go down in Canada, even though Canada does not use capital punishment.<\/li>\n<li>\u00c2\u00a0One of the authors of the Emory study (Joanna Shepherd) found in a separate study that while the death penalty deterred murder in six states, it actually increased murder in 13 states and had no effect on the murder rate in eight states. Other studies have found that the death penalty has a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153brutalization effect,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d increasing the number of murders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Danger lurks whenever we look at statistical claims without a skeptical eye, never more so than when the issue is life and death. We need straight information before making an informed decision on the death penalty. Statistical claims that wilt under the mildest scrutiny woefully fail to meet that test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00c2\u00a0By Jeremy J. Collins Though most experts have long dismissed any measurable deterrent effect from the use of the death penalty, a recent AP story helped spark new discussion on the topic. According to the report, some academic studies have purported to find such a deterrent impact. The story cited a 2003 Emory University study&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}