The Death Penalty Is Not a Deterrent to Homicide Research Paper

Emotionally, the American public favors the death penalty as justifiable punishment for premeditated criminal homicide, especially if there is any degree of torture involved in the murder. While most view capital punishment as retribution for the life that was taken, some believe that this form of punishment will serve to put others on notice that the price they may pay for killing another human being may very well be their own life (Radelet and Akers). However, proper application of statistical analysis shows that the application of the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to criminal homicide.

Amazingly, almost a full decade into the 21^st century, many who support the death penalty as a deterrent to criminal homicide continue to cite a 1975 study by Ehrlich (116) in which the research presented two especially spectacular graphs. The first of these (Ehrlich 120) presents a regression analysis that overlays the homicide rate during weeks in which executions did occur on the homicide rate during weeks in which executions did not occur. The results are startling. The resulting graphical evidence shows that the homicide rate rises markedly during weeks when no executions occur and drop just as drastically during weeks when executions do occur. This has led to the assumption that each execution has the power to prevent approximately eight murders per year (Zeisel, p. 129).

Zeisel also presents a second graph extracted from the work of Ehrlich in which the rate and number of homicides are compared to the rate and number of executions during the period between 1960 and 1969. This graphical evidence also looks as if it was designed to be shocking. In 1960, the homicide rate stood at five per 100,000 people in America. In 1969, the number of executions was under 50 per 100,000 individuals in the nation. By 1969, the death penalty had been abolished, so the number of executions had fallen to zero. Yet, the homicide rate had risen to over 80 per 100,000 Americans. This would seem to be concrete evidence that removal of the threat of capital punishment resulted directly in a corresponding increase in the rate of homicide in the United States (Zeisel, p. 132).

When the 1975 Ehrlich study was published, it soon became the standard referenced by all who maintain that capital punishment is a deterrent to homicide, and still is today. As is customary, other researchers set about to replicate the Ehrlich study and, had it been valid, would have been able to do so. However, before the end of that same year, Passell and Taylor used the same data used by Ehrlich and found, when the logarithmic form of the regression equation is used, the deterrent effect of the death penalty on the rate of homicide simply vanished. In addition, Zeisel presented the work of an even earlier study, in which it was shown that there is no statistical difference between the rates of homicide in states with executions and states that had abolished the death penalty. Ultimately, Zeisel concluded that, if there is a deterrent effect associated with the death penalty, it can only be minute.

In more recent years, the value of the experience of those who serve in the criminal justice system has been polled for the purpose of gaining insight into whether the death penalty is actually a deterrent to criminal homicide or not (Radelet and Akers). These findings present comparisons between the opinions of criminology presidents and police chiefs. When asked if they supported the death penalty as a symbolic way of convincing the public that they are tough on crime, 100% of the criminology presidents agreed, but only 85% of the police chiefs agreed. This seems quite odd when it is compared with the response that not one of the criminology presidents actually believed that the death penalty has a significant impact on reducing the number of homicides, but 26% of police chiefs believed the death penalty does reduce the number of homicides (Radelet and Akers). The implications of these two answers support the notion that members of these two professions may be contributing to the general, however erroneous, belief of the public that capital punishment is a deterrent to homicide for their own personal and professional gain.

As shown, statistical studies cannot prove that the imposition of the death penalty has any deterrent effect on the rate of homicide. In addition, there is statistical evidence that some public officials may routinely use inflammatory remarks designed to inflate the effects of the death penalty on the rate of homicide for their own personal and professional gain. This, coupled with the so-called common-sense argument, leads to the continued notion that capital punishment is necessary as a deterrent to homicide in the United States. Since this common-sense argument has its foundations in an erroneous statistical base, surely it could be dispelled through community education. It might also be of value to investigate why it is believed that capital punishment must be a deterrent to homicide, even though repeated efforts to produce statistical support for this position have failed. If the American public chooses to keep capital punishment, it should be a conscious choice based on fact and on research that can be reproduced, and not a decision that is based on an emotional error.

Works Cited

1. Ehrlich, Isaac. “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment in California. in The Death Penalty in America, 3^rd ed. Ed. Hugo Adam Bedau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 116 – 128.
2. Passell, Peter and John Taylor “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Another View.” in The Death Penalty in America, 3^rd ed. Ed. Hugo Adam Bedau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 139 – 147.
3. Radelet, Michael L. and Ronald L. Akers. Deterrence and the Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts. (1996). pp. 1 – 17.
4. Zeisel, Hans. “The Deterrent Effect of the Death Penalty: Facts v. Faith,” in The Death Penalty in America, 3^rd ed. Ed. Hugo Adam Bedau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp. 129 – 138.