Could Quicker Executions Deter Homicides

Of Models Assessing the Role of Celerityof Executions on State HomicidesCHAPTER 6; Does Race Matter? Assessing the "Reach ofExecutions"; Race-Specific Results; Descriptive Results; Racial Differences in State Homicide Rates; Racial Differences in Waits for Executions; Are Whites and Blacks Differentially Deterred?; Does the Race of the Executed Offender Matter forDeterrence?; Does Celerity in the Execution of Whites AffectBlack Homicide Rates?; Does Celerity in the Execution of Blacks Affect WhiteHomicide Rates?; Summary of Race-Specific Findings; CHAPTER 7.

Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates. This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of noncapital punishments on homicide rates. The report recommends new avenues of research that may provide broader insight into any deterrent effects from both capital and noncapital punishments.

Proponents of capital punishment insist that criminals are dissuaded from committing murder if they know they will be executed. However, critics maintain that capital punishment's supposed deterrent effect is not supported by statistics, studies, and other sources.

"Uses the Trayvon Martin case as a springboard to examine race, crime, and justice in our criminal justice system. Contributors explores how race and racism inform how Americans think about criminality; how crimes are investigated and prosecuted; and how highly publicized criminal cases go on to shape public views about offenders and the criminal process"--

Whether executing violent offenders deters murder and violent crime is a major aspect of the capital punishment debate. Contributors to this anthology use both theories and hard evidence to support their divergent views on the death penalty's power of deterrence.

From 1965 until 1980, there was a virtual moratorium on executions for capital offenses in the United States. This was due primarily to protracted legal proceedings challenging the death penalty on constitutional grounds. After much Sturm und Drang, the Supreme Court of the United States, by a divided vote, finally decided that "the death penalty does not invariably violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment." The Court's decisions, however, do not moot the controversy about the death penalty or render this excellent book irrelevant. The ball is now in the court of the Legislature and the Executive. Leg islatures, federal and state, can impose or abolish the death penalty, within the guidelines prescribed by the Supreme Court. A Chief Executive can commute a death sentence. And even the Supreme Court can change its mind, as it has done on many occasions and did, with respect to various aspects of the death penalty itself, durlog the moratorium period. Also, the people can change their minds. Some time ago, a majority, according to reliable polls, favored abolition. Today, a substantial majority favors imposition of the death penalty. The pendulum can swing again, as it has done in the past.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Law - Criminal process, Criminology, Law Enforcement, grade: A, University of Alaska Fairbanks, language: English, abstract: This is an investigation into the death penalty and how it is applied across political lines in America. With a focus on the differences in Democratic run states and Republican run states. The death penalty and its effects on a state’s murder rate have long been a point of controversy. It has been debated whether the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. There is an ongoing need to understand the deterrence effect of the death penalty, in order to understand how to properly lower the murder rates in a given area. Further, in order to understand if the death penalty is applied in a given state , it is important to look at the political orientation of a particular state. Political orientation can have a strong affect on the punishment type chosen by a particular state. This study seeks to clarify the debate by looking at the statistical facts, and formulating hypothesis. (1) the death penalty is a deterrent for the crime of murder. (2) Conservative states are more likely to employ the death penalty. Null hypothesis, (1) the death penalty has no effect on the murder rate. (2) political leanings of a state do not determine if they have the death penalty.

Few state issues have attracted as much controversy and national attention as the application of the death penalty in Texas. In the years since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Texas has led the nation in passing death sentences and executing prisoners. The vigor with which Texas has implemented capital punishment has, however, raised more than a few questions. Why has Texas been so fervent in pursuing capital punishment? Has an aggressive death penalty produced any benefits? Have dangerous criminals been deterred? Have rights been trampled in the process and, most importantly, have innocents been executed? These important questions form the core of Lethal Injection: Capital Punishment in Texas during the Modern Era. This book is the first comprehensive empirical study of Texas's system of capital punishment in the modern era. Jon Sorensen and Rocky Pilgrim use a wealth of information gathered from formerly confidential prisoner records and a variety of statistical sources to test and challenge traditional preconceptions concerning racial bias, deterrence, guilt, and the application of capital punishment in this state. The results of their balanced analysis may surprise many who have followed the recent debate on this important issue.