November 15, 2007
Killing killers deters more killers
Death penalty opponents are fond of the old saw that the ultimate criminal punishment deters no-one from murder; saves no innocent lives; and plays no role in falling crime rates.
I’ve read a study –- the data collected through interviews with hundreds of hardened, life-long criminals, more than a few, killers -– that concluded that criminals themselves considered the death penalty when planning and carrying out their crimes, restraining their most violent impulses.
Actually, the study noted that the death penalty had a measurable effect only in those states where the time between verdict and execution was seven years or less (Texas, anyone?).
In those states where prosecutors, judge and jury might die of old age before the prisoner began the long walk to the death chamber, the criminals said they were less concerned by such a distant, possibly never-arriving date with the hangman (California, anyone?).
In the latest effort to seek hard data in support of continued executions -– at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is set to address yet the latest argument in favor of banning the practice (lethal injections hurt too much!) –- two professors at Pepperdine University (Roy Adler and Michael Summers) crunched the numbers, publishing their results on the Opinion page of the Wall Street Journal (Friday, November 2, 2007, page A-13).
Recent evidence … suggests that the death penalty, when carried out, has an enormous deterrent effect on the number of murders. More precisely, our recent research shows that each execution carried out is correlated with about 74 fewer murders the following year.
[…]
The study examined the relationship between the number of executions and the number of murders in the U.S. for the 26-year period from 1979 to 2004, using data from publicly available FBI sources.
They graph the data, in a chart reproduced in the Journal, showing executions rising as murders decline, and murders increasing when executions are fewer.
In the early 1980s, the return of the death penalty was associated with a drop in the number of murders. In the mid-to-late 1980s, when the number of executions stabilized at about 20 per year, the number of murders increased. Throughout the 1990s, our society increased the number of executions, and the number of murders plummeted. Since 2001, there has been a decline in executions and an increase in murders.
It is possible that this correlated relationship could be mere coincidence, so we did a regression analysis on the 26-year relationship. The association was significant at the .00005 level, which meant the odds against the pattern being simply a random happening are about 18,000 to one. Further analysis revealed that each execution seems to be associated with 71 fewer murders in the year the executions took place.
The authors address the problem of causation, acknowledging that it can be a two-way street –- but not when it comes to the death penalty, arguing that, “it may be logical that more executions could lead to fewer murders, but it is not at all logical that fewer murders could cause more executions.”
They also address the interaction of causation and timing.
Causes should come before effects, so we correlated each year’s executions to the following year’s murders and found the results to be even more dramatic. The association was significant at the .00003 level, which meant the odds against the random happening are longer than 34,000 to one. Each execution was associated with 74 fewer murders the following year.
Professors Adler and Summers anticipate that death-penalty opponents will attribute the decrease in murders to be a product of other, unrelated factors -– increased policing, demographic shifts, the elimination of dodgeball from public schools -– but they say that Occam’s razor provides the cleanest statistical shave, in the absence of any other data-rich explanations for what seems to be a clear-cut, solid connection between the two variables: more dead crooks equals significantly fewer innocent victims.
They also point out the ethical dilemma this creates for those lawyers, scholars and ACLU types zealously working to abolish the death penalty.
It now seems the proper question to ask goes far beyond the obvious one of “do we save the life of this convicted criminal?” The more proper question seems to be “do we save this particular life, at the cost of the lives of dozens of future murder victims?”
I’d go further, turning the defense attorney’s mantra, “Better a thousand guilty men go free than an innocent man lose his freedom!” on its head and ask another question.
Assuming for the purposes of my argument that the convicted killers on death row are guilty of the crimes alleged, does anyone believe that society and justice are better served if we adopt, “Better 150 innocent men, women and children murdered, than a murderer’s life ended”?
I know how I'd answer that question.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 15, 2007 03:25 PM
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Comments
I don't actually care if the death penalty deters other potential criminals. Statistics on the subject merely provide a starting point for a contentious and inconclusive argument. What is indisputable is that imposing the death penalty deters that individual from ever committing any crimes against anybody ever again. And that's a good enough reason for the death penalty, right there.
Posted by: The Little Coach at November 19, 2007 10:07 AM
I agree with you. However, the revelation that executions may in fact actually deter more crime takes away perhaps the major talking point of the "Hugs-Not-Lethal-Drugs-For-Thugs" crowd: that capital punishment is a brutal, primitive, retributive act with no redeeming societal purpose, other than perpetuating an eye-for-an-eye mentality.
Also, an Old Testament kind of guy, I'm good with the eye-for-an-eye business.
Posted by: Mike Lief at November 19, 2007 10:20 AM
Nothing actually prevents irrational people from continuing the argument. The lack of reasoned support simply causes them to shout louder.
Posted by: The Little Coach at November 19, 2007 02:53 PM