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Devin Dustman

Mrs.Oberg

English 11

10 October 2016

The Death Penalty as a Deterrent

The death penalty is, and has been a highly contentious since as far back as the early

1800s. And in this long history even facts have been disputed, by people on both sides of the

argument. This muddling of the facts has made many even the most basic arguments descend

into nothing more than imbroglio, almost to the point where the truth is almost impossible. Along

these same lines, a question that most would imagine could be answered with a simple yes or no,

namely does the death work as a deterrent of crime, is made incredibly difficult to answer.

Though despite this, conclusions can still be made about this issue, and for me it is clear that in

reality the death penalty is not an effective way to prevent crime. This has been shown by the

fact that despite years of research, there has been very, very few reputable sources that claim the

death penalty deters crime, while there are many studies that show that the death penalty is at the

very least highly ineffective, if not useless as a deterrent. This is made even more startling by the

fact that there are other far cheaper routes, both monetarily and morally to discourage crime.

The death penalty is, of course, highly disputed in many aspects, and in the argument

about its deterrent effects this is doubly true, though while being highly controversial most

experts have agreed that the deterrent effects from the death penalty are either exceedingly small

or entirely non-existent. This has been shown by a slew of both employees of the law and social

scientists alike, as Michael L. Radelet, demonstrated with a large scale survey of the

criminologists of the world, asking the question “is the death penalty is a deterrent”(Radalet).

And, unsurprisingly the vast majority of them agreed that the death penalty is not an effective

crime deterrent, this consensus was reached by almost 90% of these earlier stated international
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criminologists. Though beyond this this “deterrent hypothesis” is further disputed by the

nationwide crime statistics, which show that areas, like the south which account almost 80% of

executions still has the highest murder rate in the nation, which once again, ignoring outside

factors, shows the fact that, at least in this area of the world, executing criminals, does not stop

other criminals from committing the same crime.

As well as this, it has been shown that the deterrent effects of the death penalty are at the

very least equalled by far more economically cheap methods, namely life in prison. And, once

again a large majority of criminologists agree that the death penalty is a more effective deterrent

than life in prison, namely 90% (Radelet). As well as this it has been shown in many states the

death penalty can cost up to 3 times as much, on average than life in prison. Which is a startling

fact, especially considering the clear ineffectiveness of this practice from a purely practical

standpoint, all of which conspire to expose the practice of the death penalty in all of it’s faults.

And it truly begs the question, why not just switch to life in prison, a far more constitutionally,

and some say, morally, more sound practice.

Many claim that the death penalty is an effective way to deter crime, and many of these

people use these supposed deterrent effects as one of their argumental cornerstones to back the

claim that the United States requires the death penalty in some moral or pragmatic way. And

more often than not these people can support this claim with seemingly direct evidence, most

often a statement about how “Every execution results, on average, in eighteen fewer murders”

(Dezhbakhsh), and while this may seem on the surface to a logical assertion, upon further

research it becomes clear how flawed a large portion of these articles are. These flaws can be

found in the rarity of executions today, as well as the natural changes in the violent crime rate,

which of course shifts year to year (Donohue). These two major factors can make it

extraordinarily difficult to form a connection between the rate of murder and the rate of

executions, and most claims to the contrary are made tenuous at best. This gaping weakness in
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the statistics is made even greater by some of the complaints from social scientists, many of

which lob complaints about, the lack of repeatability, large swaths of missing data points and

failing to account for some important variables (Fagan). And finally simple common sense

debunks many of these claims, as murder is very rarely a highly calculated movement, and is

more often than not, a snap judgement decision, or committed by someone who is severely

mentally ill, and both of these groups are not often swayed by the future repercussions of their

present choices.

In conclusion, while the efficacy of the death penalty is highly debated, both the experts

and common sense, point towards this out-dated practice being ineffective at the one thing that it

promises to provide, beyond a sense of finality, that the process oftentimes fails to bring. This

failure has been demonstrated both by the widespread statistic failings, in the defence of the

death penalty, as well as the strong case for the death penalty's efficacies.

Works Cited

ProCon.org. "Jimmy Carter." ProCon.org. 13 Mar. 2013, 3:26 p.m.,

deathpenalty.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=12262

ProCon.org. "Michael L. Radelet , PhD." ProCon.org. 10 Nov. 2008, 1:36 p.m.,

deathpenalty.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=6096

ProCon.org. "John J. Donohue III, JD, PhD." ProCon.org. 7 Oct. 2016, 9:02 a.m.,

deathpenalty.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=12176

ProCon.org. "Hashem Dezhbakhsh, PhD." ProCon.org. 6 Aug. 2013, 12:38 p.m.,

deathpenalty.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=12160
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