The 'funny' thing is that if an Israeli murders his Israeli neighbour, there is no death penalty.

greggerypeccary wrote on Jun 29^th, 2013 at 9:14pm:


not according to this one

Then in 1973 Isaac Ehrlich employed a new kind of analysis which produced results showing that for every inmate who was executed, 7 lives were spared because others were deterred from committing murder. Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich in follow-up studies

(that's from the link Socrates put up earlier)

he even explained why the others were inconclusive

Moreover, even if some studies regarding deterrence are inconclusive, that is only because the death penalty is rarely used and takes years before an execution is actually carried out. Punishments which are swift and sure are the best deterrent. The fact that some states or countries which do not use the death penalty have lower murder rates than jurisdictions which do is not evidence of the failure of deterrence. States with high murder rates would have even higher rates if they did not use the death penalty.

"Study: 88% of criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent"

“There is overwhelming consensus among America’s top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty.  A previous study in 1996 had come to similar conclusions."

"Nearly 78% of those surveyed said that having the death penalty in a state does not lower the murder rate."

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists-do-not-believe-death-pen...

It's not exactly my area of expertise so I'm not about to go looking for studies. Most of the studies you've shown have said that the evidence is inconclusive ... with 'some' showing crimes rates actually increase. I counter your 'some' with 'Similar results have been produced by disciples of Ehrlich'.

The truth of the matter is that the evidence is inconclusive one way or the other. It's impossible to test with any certainty. To know if it really works you would have to know the number of deaths that will occur over a period of time, with and without the death penalty. Then make your comparison.

From a psychological point of view, their is no greater motivator than the risk to ones own life. Sure, some won't care regardless, but this isn't about ending these crimes, merely reducing and punishing appropriately.

Avram Horowitz wrote on Jun 29^th, 2013 at 9:37pm:


It has been the only point you have been making in this Thread.  The dummies here fell for it.  I realised you were blurring your argument quite deliberately, hence I decided to step into a Thread I swore I'd not post in. So, tell us what your view is on the 'domestic' death penalty, huh?

Avram Horowitz wrote on Jun 29^th, 2013 at 9:47pm:



I agree.

Hi Avram - have you watched hang em high with Clint Eastwood - ?
great movie.

I'd be fascinated to know how any study can find that an execution deters seven other murders. Why not six or eight?

The other part of Socrates' link (yes, I cheated and read it) quotes another professor as claiming that the DP must be a deterrent because people fear death more than anything.

That is certainly not true for all. And how many people commit crimes expecting to get found out?