For those who support the death penalty?

Question

If you think the death penalty is a deterrent, then how do you explain the lower murder rate in states where the death penalty has been abolished?

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=169#MRalpha

I can't give details of these states demographics, or what the murder rate was before the death penalty was abolished, but it would be worth looking at canada. After they abolished the death penaly the murder rate fell. Juries also became more likely to convict in murder cases.

http://www.amnesty.ca/deathpenalty/canada.php

Answer 1

The death penalty is not a deterrant. The best source on this is FBI Crime Stats (see source list.) These can be compared to lists of which states have the death penalty (Death Penatly Information Center.) An interesting example is New York City. In New York County (Manhattan) the District Attorney has never sought the death penalty. Homicide rates there remain lower than all other large urban areas. By the way, homicide and crime rates started to decrease several years before New York State adopted the death penalty. Also, most killers do not think that they will be caught, if they think at all.

One of the people who answered doesn’t care that it is not a deterrent. Penhead72 should know that 48 states now have life without parole as an available sentence. It means what it says, and being locked up in a tiny cell, 23 hours a day, forever, is no picnic.

Another person who answered, Gandolf Gnu, is wrong about cost. The death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment. The extra costs begin even before the trial. Just one example, since 1995, New York State sentence 7 men to death. Of these, 4 have had one appeal and the rest have had none. The cost for this is well over $200,000,000. In New York State the average cost of imprisoning someone, per year, is $35,000. Speaks for itself.

Some other answers are focusing on revenge and do not have the facts. Here are a few of them, all verifiable and sourced-

Re: Possibility of executing an innocent person
Over 120 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence. If we speed up the process we are bound to execute an innocent person.

Re: DNA
DNA evidence is available in no more than 10% of all murder cases. It is no guarantee that we will never execute an innocent person. It is human nature to make mistakes

Re: Who gets the death penalty
The death penalty is not reserved for the “worst of the worst,” but rather for defendants with the worst lawyers. When is the last time a wealthy person was sentenced to death, let alone executed??

Re: Victims families
People should know that the death penalty is very hard on victims’ families. They must relive their ordeal in the courts and the media. Life without parole is sure, swift and rarely appealed. Some victims families who support the death penalty in principal prefer life without parole because of how the death penalty affects families like theirs.

Last of all, opposing the death penalty does not mean a person condones brutal crimes or excuses the people who commit them. I believe that the dialogue on the death penalty should be based on verifiable facts. People should make up their minds using common sense based on the facts and not on revenge.

Answer 2

Actually, I am against the death penalty. That said, I already know what the argument here is going to be, and it is a fair argument. It is not like ONLY the non-death penalty states have low crime. There are a good handful of states there with the penalty that have lower rates. Idaho. Connecticut. New Hampshire. Montana. Florida's has been going down every year since those stats began. They might argue that it is because of the death penalty.

The real key there is what kind of states have the high rates? Are they states like California, Maryland, and New York, which have high urban rates or significantly large cities? States with more urban areas are going to have higher crime rates. Are they states like Louisiana, Mississippi, or Tennessee that have high poverty rates? States with high poverty rates are going to have more crime as well. Meanwhile, Michigan and Alaska are on the no penalty list, and they have pretty high rates themselves. There are also lots of regional and cultural differences that affect the results.

There is still a bit of a suggestion here that the death penalty has little effect on the crime rate, or there would be more of a pattern between the states with and the states without the crime rate, aside of the factors I mention above. That said, it just isn't that simple. Ultimately this is a moral argument, and possibly a practical argument, but not a statistical one. From a moral point of view, I am in agreement with you! I think the death penalty is hypocritical and useless, but that is easy for me to say. I haven't had a family member get murdered by a serial killer anytime in the recent past.

Answer 3

This will probably be construed as racism, but the yellow highlights were on predominantly white states. Go ahead and call me a racist and all that jive, but if you deny it, you are only fooling yourself. Also, it would be good to see the before and after murder rates for before the death penalty was abolished and after in that state.

Answer 4

I won't go through the states listed in your graph one by one but you gotta laugh at the statistics when it involves places like Alaska and Hawaii, two of the most recreational places and fun places to go. Money keeps the murder rate down and for the most part in those two places it is the class of people who can afford to live there. Hawaii is also the healthiest place to live according to some studies because, it Hawaii.

The areas of low income housing are slim and in Alaska's case there is also the harsh of the cold which narrows the population.

The majority of the rest are farmland states with a large number of country areas. People here have guns my dear. That is the deterrent in most cases. The laws differ in the states in the portion of the graph as to home invasion.

Mass. has so many taxes and regulations, again the people who can afford to live in these states and the revenue recieved from the taxes equals a lower amount of crime.

Precentage wise the number of murders equals out when given the comparisons of population. More crowded areas will have more of a crime rate because there are more people living closer together in poor nieghborhoods and unprotected regions.

Farmers in Iowa could own 300 to 1200 acres where as in New York the percentage of people with this size of property will be fewer because of the abalbility of land and overall value of the property per acre.

It is easy to come up with graphs or tables for either side of this issue, when it comes down to it graphs can be used by either side. Yours for example doesn't show attempted murders so the margin of error is debatable. It also doesn't show missing persons, or border homicides.

Answer 5

i'm centred on it! in case you kill somebody in chilly blood, then you quite could have your existence taken additionally. Why could somebody who took an innocient existence be allowed to stay? This only is going for people who genuinely deserve the dying penalty. while you're in contact in a motor vehicle accident and somebody dies, then no, i could dont have faith that individual could be placed to dying. yet for people who a hundred% bypass out with a objective to kill..then HELL confident! And why take care of each and every of the expenses of the execution? right here you bypass...purchase a 9mm hand gun for say, 3 hundred-4 hundred dollars. A container of shells value ohhh 12 dollars? One to the top and you're executed. i understand lots of you libs will say that my ideas are incorrect and no person can be finished like that. yet what touching directly to the guy who they killed? Did they need to be killed the way they did? Libs are a team of hippie tree huggers and permit killers to stay alive together as the family of the human beings they killed could pay to maintain that individual alive. next

Answer 6

Demographics. The states with the fewest murders can afford to forgoe the death penalty. Those states with lots of murders both need stiffer punishment and have a higher instance of torture/murder or rape/murder, both of which should be automatically death penalty.

Answer 7

While those statistics may seem low, the population of those states could be much less than in other states. In the end, it more than likely evens out.

Answer 8

I don't frickin care if it's a deterrent or not!!! THE PUNISHMENT SHOULD FIT THE CRIME!!!!!!!!! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER THE CRIMINALS WILL BE "SCARED" OR NOT!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me ask you something: why should child molesters receive probation and walk free in just 3 years? Why should heinous murders be eligible for parole after all of 5 years? Why should they be able to tie up the court system?
Remember what Willie Horton did after he was released via furlough?

Answer 9

Wow! You just single handily changed my view of the death penalty after supporting it my entire life!!! Maybe I should ask your opinion of the war in Iraq, abortion, global warming and how to raise my kids!!!

I do not care if the death penalty deters crime. What matters to me is that it prevents those who have fulfilled their sentence through the death penalty from being repeat offenders.

Answer 10

the deterrent aspect is a farse. They do not impose the death penalty enough or consistently for it too be a deterrent. If you knew you would die if you killed another person it is only logical that it would deter you.