Death Penalty Deterrence

Deterrence

For- Society has always used punishment to deter people from committing crime. With homicide being considered one of the worst and unnatural crimes wouldn’t you use the worst punishment available to punish the person who committed the crime? If murderers are put to death then maybe potential murderers will think twice before killing in the fear that they may lose their own lives.

Naci Cohan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver was a co-author on a published a study in 2003 and re-examined in 2006 that shows evidence that the death penalty does in fact deter homicide. More specifically that data showed that for every execution five homicides were prevented. The study is also unbiased Naci Cohan is quoted

Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder published a study in the Journal of Criminal law and Criminology that shows that Eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists does not believe the death penalty acts a deterrent to homicide. Eighty-seven percent of the criminologists who took this survey also believe that abolition of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates. The threat of the death penalty is unlikely to enter a person’s mind when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol or they are so enraged that they are prepared to commit homicide. Studies show that states that do not have the death penalty have consistently lower rates of murder than states that do use the death penalty as

With the advance in DNA evidence it’s almost difficult to commit someone of these crimes when they are actually innocent. Even when innocent people are placed on death row evidence comes up showing that they are innocent taking them off of it. Orrin G. Hatch, JD, US Senator, in his June 13, 2000 speech "Statement of Senator Orrin Hatch Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on 'Post-Conviction DNA Testing: When Is Justice Served?'," stated, “Advanced DNA testing improves the just and fair implementation of the death penalty. While reasonable people can differ about capital punishment, it is indisputable that advanced DNA testing lends support and credibility to the accuracy and integrity of capital verdicts. In short, we are in a better position than ever before to ensure that only the guilty are executed.” Against- Although we have DNA evidence it does not mean that it is always conclusive. People get put and taken off of death row after finding more evidence later on. Who is to say that some of those people who are put to death are all guilty? There is always the chance that that person was wrongfully blamed for the crime. The fact that there is any chance at all that the person being put to death is innocent outweighs putting someone who is actually guilty to