Does states with the death penalty have lower crime rates than states that do not have the death penatly?

Question

Where could I find studies, charts or anything that either supports or can be used as an arugment against the statement. States with the death penalty have a lower crime rate than the states who do not?

Answer 1

For stats on crime rates, the Death Penalty Information Center has what you are looking for. They are at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. The specific page is
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
article.php?scid=12&did=169
where you will find data from the FBI with crime rates, and numbers of executions per state.

One of the answers believes that when we execute people we save the taxpayers money. This is not true. The cost of a system with capital punishment is much higher than one without it.

Some of the reasons:
Pre trial costs when the death penalty is available are much greater because, once a suspect is caught, the prosecutor must do a separate investigation into the crime, into the suspect himself, that is, does the suspect have mental retardation (if so, he cannot face the death penalty) or mental illness (he can face the death penalty). If the prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty, the trial will have two separate phases, one to decide guilt, one to decide the penalty. The process of choosing jurors is much more complicated in death penalty cases. Many more pre-trial motions are filed motions are filed by both sides and have to be answered. Prosecution teams use more lawyers, and where the money is available, by the defense as well. Death penalty cases take much longer to try. If the sentence is death, the prisoner will be locked up in a separate prison facility, which is generally much expensive to run and to maintain. It is only at this point that appeals begin and costs continue to mount up. It is also important to note that the overwhelming number of cases where the death penalty is not on the table end in plea bargains.

More and more states now have life without parole on the books.
Unlike the death penalty it is swifter and surer than the death penalty, and the costs of incarcerating someone for life is very small compared to the costs of executing that person. The money that is unnecessarily spent on death penalty cases could be spent on things that really do work for us, such as victims assistance programs, which are underfunded.

We have a choice to make: doing something that makes sense or spending all this money on a system which is too frequently driven by revenge and not common sense.

Answer 2

In the past ten years, the number of executions in the U.S. has increased while the murder rate has declined. Some commentators have maintained that the murder rate has dropped because of the increase in executions (see, e.g., W. Tucker, "Yes, the Death Penalty Deters," Wall St. Journal, June 21, 2002). However, during this decade the murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty.

These figures exclude Kansas and New York, which adopted the death penalty in 1994 and 1995 respectively. If these states are included in their proper categories, the results are even more dramatic:

As executions rose, states without the death penalty fared much better than states with the death penalty in reducing their murder rates. The gap between the murder rate in death penalty states and the non-death penalty states grew larger. In 1990, the murder rates in these two groups were 4% apart. By 2000, the murder rate in the death penalty states was 35% higher than the rate in states without the death penalty. In 2001, the gap between non-death penalty states and states with the death penalty again grew, reaching 37%. For 2002, the number stands at 36%.

Answer 3

The [Anti] dying Penalty counsel midsection gets information from the FBI to offer such comparisons. The FBI's very own information superhighway web site warns against utilizing one in each of those assessment because it would not tell the entire tale. there are a number of factors to contemplate while making an prognosis of the dying penalty, such by using fact the age of the inhabitants, mobility of the inhabitants, training stages, etc. Why no longer evaluate issues mutually with states with decrease training point even have larger homicide expenses? Or a youthful inhabitants? Or the place there's a dense inhabitants? Or the place the worst economies are placed? those are all substantial factors to contemplate that are being surpassed over via the [Anti] DPIC to offer biased counsel.

Answer 4

The death penalty state might have a lower crime rate if ...

1) The death sentence was carried out in the same year (or decade) as the offense. Unfortunately there is usually a 20 to 30 year lapse between sentencing and execution. Cut the lapse to no more than 5 years, see the number of capital crimes DROP!

2) The death sentence should be public! Film it and show it on every channel in the state, copy it to the internet, and make it manditory viewing in high school.

3) There should be pain involved. No peaceful passing from life to death, bring back firing squads and/or the electric chair lethal injection is too humane! Big fat furry deal, they pump the convict full of drugs designed to make the experience as painless as possible. Make it HURT, Show a close-up of the face of the convict with a pained expression on his face, cut to his body writhing in pain. Then show his coffin being dumped in "potter's field" (not consecrated grounds). Bring the lesson home, you kill another person without cause (I do support justifiable homocide for cases where the killer was defending him/herself or another party!) you suffer PAIN!

Inflict the death penalty in a timely manner, uniformly (without regard to race, religon, national origin, or WEALTH) and you would D*** sure see a big difference in the murder rate between death penalty states and non-death penalty states!

As it is now ... IMHO, there ain't much of a difference!

Answer 5

u can goggle it , I would but I don;t have the time I am sure some one will for you on this site, but statistics show the death penalty states tend to have more death penalty crimes than the states that don't have the death penalty. in fact law enforcement will tell you when they execute some one there is rash of death penalty crimes committed immediately afterwards, some sociologist say it seems many people have a death wish ,

Answer 6

First you get a list of the states that have the death penalty and bump that up again crime statistics per state and you will have your answer. St Louis won out this year as murder capital, and MO has capital Punishment, Detroit was number 2 and MI doesn't.

Answer 7

I don't think they do. Dallas has one of the highest and we're a death penalty state. Idiots think they won't get caught.

Answer 8

No...but the taxpayers money is going to some good and not keeping a murderer alive.

Answer 9

Statistics will decieve you.

Historically, public execution was meant to deter potential murderers...from roman crucifixtion to eliizabethan hangings.

It worked

Answer 10

Not really, but we certainly have alot of fun shooting the needle in those pricks!