Does The Death Penalty Deter Murderers?

[Kythas]

In this case, it appears it would have. This guy did some research on the Internet, found out Illinois doesn't have a death penalty, and decided to go ahead with murdering a woman after discovering it does not.

http://www.suntimes.com/4828757-573/man ... brook.html

[baldeagle]

The death penalty deters those murderers to whom the penalty is applied. Whether it stops someone from committing a crime is debatable. What is not debatable is that it is a punishment for a crime already committed. If it was designed to be a deterrent, it would be called the murder deterrent. It's called the death penalty because it is a penalty that results in death.

[seamusTX]

Is this lunatic going to be "happy" because he spends life in prison with guys named Spike and Loco who use him for a mattress?

If the death penalty were a deterrent, only a couple of criminals a year would need to be executed as examples.

Most of the states of the United States that use the death penalty have higher murder rates than states that do not. There are a few exceptions.

The United States as a whole has a far higher murder rate than our socioeconomic peers like Canada, the European Union, and Japan, which do not have a death penalty or rarely use it.

- Jim

[Hoi Polloi]

Murderers have the lowest recidivism rate of all crimes. The justice system is supposed to be rehabilitative and protective. Murdering murderers does not statistically deter crime (this man's after-the-fact statement of exceptionalism withstanding). We are able to provide rehabilitative services to and societal protection from murderers in our 1st world environment.

A much better discussion is how to successfully move from the punitive system that isn't working to a truly rehabilitative system for drugs, prostitution, petty theft, and other high recidivism crimes.

I suspect this crazy guy would have come up with some other justification for murder if he discovered the death penalty was a possibility, but there's no way of altering history to test the theory.

[seamusTX]

It may be in that "ordinary" murderers who are involved in gang activity or who kill a family member, spouse, or acquaintance over a dispute have a low recidivism rate. I really don't know.

Serial killers and lunatics cannot be rehabilitated or deterred. If the facts of this case are accurate, I doubt that the best psychiatrist in the world could somehow convince this lunatic that stalking and killing women was not a good idea.

The death penalty is not "murdering murderers." It is by definition not murder, which is the unjustified killing of a human being.

Even those churches and other philosophical schools that object to the death penalty (as I do) do not label it a crime or evil. They consider it misguided and useless.

- Jim

[Hoi Polloi]

It may be in that "ordinary" murderers who are involved in gang activity or who kill a family member, spouse, or acquaintance over a dispute have a low recidivism rate. I really don't know.

Serial killers and lunatics cannot be rehabilitated or deterred. If the facts of this case are accurate, I doubt that the best psychiatrist in the world could somehow convince this lunatic that stalking and killing women was not a good idea.

The death penalty is not "murdering murderers." It is by definition not murder, which is the unjustified killing of a human being.

Even those churches and other philosophical schools that object to the death penalty (as I do) do not label it a crime or evil. They consider it misguided and useless.

- Jim

I agree completely.

While the death penalty itself isn't murder, the desire by some individuals to kill those they feel hatred for out of revenge through the death penalty is what I was referring to.

[baldeagle]

One of the greatest arguments for the death penalty is Kenneth MacDuff. Each time he was released from prison he killed again. Texas finally put him to death, and he has, since that time, never committed another murder.

[Hoi Polloi]

One of the greatest arguments for the death penalty is Kenneth MacDuff. Each time he was released from prison he killed again. Texas finally put him to death, and he has, since that time, never committed another murder.

They could have just stopped letting him out of prison, too.

[baldeagle]

One of the greatest arguments for the death penalty is Kenneth MacDuff. Each time he was released from prison he killed again. Texas finally put him to death, and he has, since that time, never committed another murder.

They could have just stopped letting him out of prison, too.

Prisoners can escape from prison or be released by corrupt or well-meaning officials. They cannot escape from the death penalty.

[seamusTX]

While the death penalty itself isn't murder, the desire by some individuals to kill those they feel hatred for out of revenge through the death penalty is what I was referring to.

A great advantage of our judicial system is that it removes judgment from the victims or survivors who have an emotional interest in the outcome. The guilty verdict is much less subjective than it would have been in the days of vendetta. (It still is not perfect, and probably never can be.)

When the death penalty is carried out, a decade or more after the crime, sometimes relatives of the murder victim are reconciled with the convicted killer. I can't comprehend that, but it happens.

- Jim

[Lonest4r]

I believe that the death penalty, as it is currently implemented, is not a deterrent to murderers. For the majority of people who commit murder, statistics show that these people have a better life in prison and actually have a longer life expectancy in the death row appeals system than they would on the streets. Its sad that our system can't implement the death penalty for the guilty, and actually manages to kill innocent people at the same time(see Texas innocence project).

[OldCurlyWolf]

The best that can be said it that it permanently deters those upon whom it is executed. They will never commit another crime after it is carried out.

For sociopaths, psychopaths, pedophiles, etc. it is the only sure sentence. They are not fixable and if ever released into society WILL offend again.

[baldeagle]

The problem with the death penalty in America is that it is very stupidly and very unevenly applied. There should be a determination made, in the sentencing phase, of the likelihood of the now-convicted individual of re-offending as well as the likelihood of psychological counseling doing any good. A person who kills their spouse in a rage, for example, should not be punished the same as a person who has had five spouses and killed every one of them. A gangbanger who will kill without compunction, for example, should not be treated the same as a person who kills someone who raped their daughter. A person who gets in a gunfight and kills several people who were shooting at him (but his actions are not justified under the penal code) should not be treated the same as a serial killer who kills the same number of people but coldly, methodically and will do it over and over again until stopped.

I don't think those types of people (serial killers, for example) should get life in prison because it's unfair to the other prisoners. Why should they be forced to live in the same environment with a serial killer? Are their lives worth so much less that it's OK to expose them to much higher risks?

[E.Marquez]

Honestly.. my personal opinion...... NO, it does not deter a potential murder from murdering. And yet, i'm at peace with my opinion and belief capital punishment is justified and righteous.

FACT: Murders who are executed, never murder again.
FACT: Murders who are executed, allow the remaining family to never wounder where or what the murder is doing, while there loved one is dead.
FACT: Murders who are executed,the family and LEO's, prosecution never have to face a parole hearing to relive the event and plead for the board to not release the scum that boldly, coldly murdered someone.
There are more reasons for capital punishment, those are some of mine, even though I truly believe, it in no way deters a thief, a rapist, a gang banger or drug dealer from taking that next step, making them selfs a murder. Those kind of folks do not think, rationalize like normal folks(thats a generalization, I'm sure there are some high end sophisticated organized thieves (crews) that strive to just do the job and not engage or kill anyone for various reasons)

[Jumping Frog]

As far as the "keeping them locked up" argument goes, just because they are in prison does not mean they are no longer a danger to society. This is one of the reasons I am for the timely execution of death row prisoners.

Prisoner-on-prisoner violence is an everyday fact in today's prison. Prisoners regularly injure correction officers, and there are also instances of rape and murder of corrections officers. Even the rest of society isn't safe. There are enough well-documented cases of gang leaders operating their business and having hits performed from inside prison that the Discovery Channel has made documentaries showing how they even operate from within the so-called supermax prisons.

The other reason that morally justifies the death penalty is deterrence.

In the study GETTING OFF DEATH ROW: COMMUTED SENTENCES AND THE DETERRENT EFFECT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT from The Journal of Law & Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, there was a definite deterrent effect found. From the abstract:

This paper merges a state-level panel data set that includes crime and deterrence measures and state characteristics with information on all death sentences handed out in the United States between 1977 and 1997. Because the exact month and year of each execution and removal from death row can be identified, they are matched with state-level criminal activity in the relevant time frame. Controlling for a variety of state characteristics, the paper investigates the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder.

Really pause to think about this for a moment:

• Each execution prevents 5 murders from occurring.
• Each commutation increases murders by 5.
• Removal from death row to life in prison increases murders by 1.

The study shows that deterrent effect even when these people are sitting in prison for 8-10-15 years before being executed. I have to believe that cutting the wait time down to 6 months and performing the executions publicly would both serve to increase the deterrent effect on the number of homicides prevented. I am all for going back to public hangings in the town square.