Studies say death penalty deters crime

The current form of justice offers no restitution to the victim. If someone commits a crime against an individual, under the law, the state is the victim. A victim impact statement can be prepared for the proceedings, but it is hardly a means to amends for the victim of the crime. I've been involved with Restorative Justice programs in the past where we've offered a voice to the victims and had the guilty provide direct restitution to the individual. It only works well in smaller offenses, but I've heard of stories where it was used on more serious offenses, even a murder.

The initial thought of Restorative Justice came from a myth, nobody really knows if its true or not as there is no documentation, but it was of a man who murdered a man in their small, close knit town. The victims family wanted to go through a process that we now consider Restorative Justice and have the guilty live with the family. Rather than ship him off to a prison, he was forced to live with the family of the individual he had murdered.

First hand, every day of his life, he had to see the damage that he had caused.

It wouldn't always work, and both parties need to be willing to partake 100%. The guilty needs to be accepting of responsibilities for their actions. But if all falls into place, it is a system that offers restitution to the person that deserves it most.

Not the state.

[edit on 12-6-2007 by chissler]

assuming the study is right, i still am on the fence.

i used to be very much for the death penalty but after DNA evidence and just seeing how totally fubar the entire justice system is from arrest to death, i am now 'on the fence'.

as i get older, although i don't hold too much reguard for people in general, (i think most are hypocritical, ahole morons) i don't know if we should be able to take another persons life unless it is a life or death situation of your own. a kill or be killed if you will.
someone like the night stalker in your house and you waste them. that is just.
problem with the death penalty is the process. it's not perfect and if you are going to waste people, it needs to be.
people lie, witnesses forget, lawyers get hung over, jurors could give a crap, evidence gets mishandled...i mean, any number of scenerios.

i do approve of it insofar as if we can be 100% sure this guy is a murderer or whatever, then be done. at this point, the only way to be done is death. it costs a lot of money to keep those people in jail and my wife and i should not have to pay for it.
a bullet is cheap.
now the optimum situation for me would be to drop them on some desolate island and leve them. every so often drop some more....they will either live or die....not really my problem..so long as i am not paying money to keep them alive for 15 years with food, water, medicine only to kill them with an injection when the proper amount of time goes by.

so what is the solution? who knows?

(now i am going back to read all the reply's. sorry if the topic shifted..)

Originally posted by newtron25
The primary aim of a sentence is provide justice. Punishment and rehabilitation are functions of society, not the law. Or did I get that reversed.....

Actually it is all three, justice is supposed to be served by punishing the offender and at the same time rehabilitating them.

The justice system has gone through many changes through out history.

Funny thing is parole was started at Norfolk Island near Australia as a way to reward good behavior. In fact the "father" of parole was Captain Alexander Maconochie. Before him you would not have wanted to be imprisoned at Norfolk it was a horrid place.


Here is a recent list of dates, era and philosophies.
1790-The penitentiary era-rehabilitation, deterrence
1825-Mass Prison era-incapacitation, deterrence
1876-The Reformatory era-Rehabilitation
1890-The Industrial era- Incapacitation, restoration
1935-The Punitive era-Retribution
1945-The treatment era-Rehabilitation
1967-The Community based era-Restoration, rehabilitation
1980-The warehousing era-Incapacitation
1995-The Just Deserts era-Retribution, incapacitation, deterrence

Nothing has worked to date to deter crime though. The closest thing we have come to doing so and hand out punishment, justice, and possible rehabilitation is incapacitation. Though locking an offender up with other offenders will not do much in the way of rehabilitation it might though give them more ideas or ways of breaking the law. The best for the other two choices though is incapacitation. The industrial era was not bad in a way of possibly helping with restitution only prisons were forming cheap slave labor taking jobs from lawful citizens. The community based era was pretty much a joke and caused a lot of stir from people wanting offenders to pay for breaking the law that is pretty much how we came to the standards we have now.

Over crowding is a problem now for many prisons less restrictive drug laws and longer mandatory sentencing for serious crimes would seem to help. In fact creating "floating" prisons or island prisons would be suitable for serious offenders that are life with no parole sentenced. This would keep them from escaping and continue to punish them for their crimes. Perhaps they could be put to work on deep sea oil rig type prisons. The only problem with this though is it would take away some jobs that the lawful would be willing to do.

A problem I see with todays justice system are some of the people working within it, that and the morals of society as a whole. But this study has gone on since the death penalty has been around proving nothing except that we ended the life of someone who may or may not be truely guilty. Other studies have said the same thing about other forms of punishment handed out by the justice system also really proving little. All of these studies are nothing more than an opinion designed to try and sway the readers opinion one way or the other.

Edit to add:
To clairify on justice it is defined as being the principle of fairness; the ideal of moral equality.

[edit on 6/12/07 by Raist]

[edit on 6/12/07 by Raist]

Originally posted by Boondock78
assuming the study is right, i still am on the fence.

i used to be very much for the death penalty but after DNA evidence and just seeing how totally fubar the entire justice system is from arrest to death, i am now 'on the fence'.

as i get older, although i don't hold too much reguard for people in general, (i think most are hypocritical, ahole morons) i don't know if we should be able to take another persons life unless it is a life or death situation of your own. a kill or be killed if you will.
someone like the night stalker in your house and you waste them. that is just.
problem with the death penalty is the process. it's not perfect and if you are going to waste people, it needs to be.
people lie, witnesses forget, lawyers get hung over, jurors could give a crap, evidence gets mishandled...i mean, any number of scenerios.

i do approve of it insofar as if we can be 100% sure this guy is a murderer or whatever, then be done. at this point, the only way to be done is death. it costs a lot of money to keep those people in jail and my wife and i should not have to pay for it.
a bullet is cheap.
now the optimum situation for me would be to drop them on some desolate island and leve them. every so often drop some more....they will either live or die....not really my problem..so long as i am not paying money to keep them alive for 15 years with food, water, medicine only to kill them with an injection when the proper amount of time goes by.

so what is the solution? who knows?

(now i am going back to read all the reply's. sorry if the topic shifted..)

You are so right on the justice system to a degree. Though it is not the system that has failed or fails at all but many of the people involved.

It is the human factor that messes up the justice system what works to punish one person may not work for another the same for rehabilitation.
More so you have corrupt people that work with in the justice system and at other time people just make mistakes unintentionally. The corruption factor could be reduced by a greater focus on the integrity of those who join the justice system. The mistakes portion may never be fixed but has a slight possibly of reduction in working people less hours per shift. We are all human and everyone makes mistakes some times unfixable ones, those are a given but long hours could hamper the ability to process much needed data.

Originally posted by Raist

You are so right on the justice system to a degree. Though it is not the system that has failed or fails at all but many of the people involved.

It is the human factor that messes up the justice system what works to punish one person may not work for another the same for rehabilitation.
More so you have corrupt people that work with in the justice system and at other time people just make mistakes unintentionally. The corruption factor could be reduced by a greater focus on the integrity of those who join the justice system. The mistakes portion may never be fixed but has a slight possibly of reduction in working people less hours per shift. We are all human and everyone makes mistakes some times unfixable ones, those are a given but long hours could hamper the ability to process much needed data.

i don't disagree. facts are though, people suck(are fallable), people like money(plays a role somewhere) and 'the system' rely's on people.
so, it is not perfect and it never will be.
doing the things you speak of acould never be a bad thing but things can start good and go sour.

people get into law enforcement, politics, law(judges and such) with great intentions but the wrong person, wrong time, wrong situation=mistakes.

there are thousands of them.
reasons i mean. even the person with the greatest integrity and who would never bend the law has a fight with his wife and goes to work mad....even they have sleepless nights, trouble with the kids, other things on their mind. even the judges and lawyers and forensics people and all those things 'can' lead to error...
as long as there is error, i don't see how the death penalty could be justifiable but there will always be error.
also, the 'system' is based off of a principle of morals that not everyone lives by.
not, i already stated that i think murder is wrong unless it's a life or death deal but bare with me for a sec. now, i know these are what if's but they are possible and after all, a persons life could be at risk.

someone gets busted for posession. that don't deserve the death pentalty..they get bent and are in for 18 months.
while they are in, the sisters take liking to him..now they are in the shower and it is 'life or death' if you know what i am saying.
dude for posession takes one out.....now he is a murderer.

gonna get put on death row?
i mean, he is a felon that just killed someone in jail, BUT he was put there by the system.

i unno, IMO, it's just all fubar.
always gonna be. i suppose it is much better than other places(the system i mean) but how could we settle.
any one of us could be in front of the dreaded judge one day. in a few days time your life could turn upside down.

someone attemps to break into your home and you waste them...now you are on death row but all you were doing was protecting your family.

Originally posted by KilgoreTrout
I'm in absolute agreement with you on this one - there are countless studies that have more independent credentials that have shown evidence to the contrary. If life in prison meant life in prison - same result and no state sanctioned murder.

What more independent credentials are you looking for? What makes them not independent?

I am concerned about the motivations of Harvard Faculty of Law and Economics and why they are so keen, as they state, to publicise these findings extensively.

Are you insinuating that they want more people killed?

Their results then we can presume are based possibly on economic factors.

You can't assume that at all.

But then it costs more to execute someone than it does to incarcarate them in the US, so that doesn't figure, unless of course they plan to reduce the legal redress those convicted of a capital offence will receive. There are many people who have been found innocent while waiting for the death penalty to be enacted up on them.

I haven't heard of any; can you give me links to that?

If the process were to be expediated there is always the possibility that an innocent could be executed.

It would seem to me that unless Harvard are not very good at economics

then they would conclude that it would be better to abolish the Death Penalty and redirect the funds used to support the legal cost involved in capital case to improve the prison system and judiciary. AND in this way work to reduce recidivism and the release of violent criminals without proper risk assessments.

Is that because you have research to back that up, or are you asserting a personal policy preference? There are many instances where when the science comes back the conclusion is 180 degrees opposite what is "intuitive." Take general relativity.

I am ardently against the death penalty. It has no place in a civilized society... but if I admit that the death penalty does deter crime, that doesn't change my opinion. If your hands were cut off if you stole a penny, you would never steal a penny. Heavy deterrant, but wrong just the same. Why is there such a vicious movement to attack these people?

[edit on 6/12/2007 by Togetic]

IMO, Here are the appropriate choices for a murderer:

Life in prision, no parole or early release. But you(the criminal) pay the rent. You can get medicare since one must be mentally ill to commit murder, which will help with the bills. I am assuming the criminal is really guilty. Clearly we have to be better about proving absolute guilt.

When you can't/don't want to pay the rent or you get tired of life in the USA prison, you can:
a. Donate your organs or sell them 1 by 1 to pay the above mentioned rent for prison; no more wasting perfectly good body parts!
b. Be transferred to a prison in China or Bhutan or Thailand or Mexico, etc. where the costs are less; this is all about globalization. The accomodations may also be less desirable. But, hey, college students make do with less in accomodations for travel. We should be getting more imprisonment for our dollar, I think.

So, there is no killing here. The inmate has the option of choosing a more cost-effective imprisonment. We don't have to deal with them. The third-world gets an industry(prisons) and medicare dollars, transplants are available, everyone wins!

Originally posted by j_kalin
IMO, Here are the appropriate choices for a murderer:

Life in prision, no parole or early release. But you(the criminal) pay the rent. You can get medicare since one must be mentally ill to commit murder, which will help with the bills. I am assuming the criminal is really guilty. Clearly we have to be better about proving absolute guilt.

When you can't/don't want to pay the rent or you get tired of life in the USA prison, you can:
a. Donate your organs or sell them 1 by 1 to pay the above mentioned rent for prison; no more wasting perfectly good body parts!
b. Be transferred to a prison in China or Bhutan or Thailand or Mexico, etc. where the costs are less; this is all about globalization. The accomodations may also be less desirable. But, hey, college students make do with less in accomodations for travel. We should be getting more imprisonment for our dollar, I think.

So, there is no killing here. The inmate has the option of choosing a more cost-effective imprisonment. We don't have to deal with them. The third-world gets an industry(prisons) and medicare dollars, transplants are available, everyone wins!

Many places are charging offenders of all sorts for some cost of their being monitored. Missouri in 2005 started charging offenders for being monitored. Kansas Jails are charging rent. New Jersey and Florida are also charging inmates for various things.

I do not agree with globalizing the prison system. Two reasons I strongly oppose that are: inmates from other countries could end up here inmates worse than our own who might escape, and two is it really fair to other countries to ship our trash off for them to house? At the same time transporting prisoners is the time when there is the most risk of escape.

I've been saying it all along- death penalties deter crime.

Not only do they prevent this guys from not committing crime in the outside world and in prison, but it will also serve as an example to others, who would be less likely to committ the crime due to the punishment awaiting.

And most criminals already showed that they are still criminals even after going to jail-just look at all those prison beatings, rapes, and killings everyday, hell thanks to this guys, anybody committing a minor crime risks more then lose of freedom and soul in prison-they also risk losing their man (or women)hood, health, and maybe even life.

"The garbage is starting to stink-time to take it out." This is my own personal saying which means kill the killers, rapers, etc....they are causing pollution and will never stop polluting.


Besides, isn't one human life worth one human life? A person takes another life (or rapes) the person should die.

Okay- someone really needs to teach me how to post other peoples statements!!!
Regardless, there is no way that this reseach can be legit- they're fishing on this one- Too many variables, and a overwhelmingly generalized independant variable.
IMO, It's a way to move the 'masses' to the conclusion (based on 'science') to legalize and enforce the killing of others.
Last I knew there was a lot of credible studies that proved the contrary. But, with statistics it's so easy to tweek the numbers to get them to give you the results you need.
Off topic- I forget the name of the two doctors. Well, they were a husband wife researcher team. They got billions of funding to give their 'aids course' (I believe? I'll google it in a sec.) because their numbers showed a significant improvement on 'Aids awareness' - Turns out, they used such a large group of people in their sample study they skewed the dividend and came up with a false equation & false results. Point being that I need to see all the data before I believe this one!

And, the concept of living with the family and suffering with guilt forever, as the MOD stated earlier, would be a far greater deterent if you ask me


No mind control issue going on? Wasn't some potitical enemy of ours recently executed and available for us all to see and hear about? I wonder if 'they' actually believed that we'd actually feeled justified?

Sorry I know I'm rambling a lot, but i really cant help it sometimes.lol

Originally posted by Russian soldier
I've been saying it all along- death penalties deter crime.

Not only do they prevent this guys from not committing crime in the outside world and in prison, but it will also serve as an example to others, who would be less likely to committ the crime due to the punishment awaiting.

And most criminals already showed that they are still criminals even after going to jail-just look at all those prison beatings, rapes, and killings everyday, hell thanks to this guys, anybody committing a minor crime risks more then lose of freedom and soul in prison-they also risk losing their man (or women)hood, health, and maybe even life.

"The garbage is starting to stink-time to take it out." This is my own personal saying which means kill the killers, rapers, etc....they are causing pollution and will never stop polluting.


Besides, isn't one human life worth one human life? A person takes another life (or rapes) the person should die.

I posted several links on a post on the last page giving details on studies that say just the opposite as well as some that agree also links to people being wrongly convicted. Basically you cannot study this type of thing it is impossible. It might factually deter the person being executed from committing further crimes but nothing more. I will ask again, if the death penalty deters crime why are we still convicting more and more people every day? Also what about those who are being released because they really are innocent? Does any one think that everyone who has been executed was guilty?

Last but certainly not least. Your last statement is such a broad thing really. By your last statement everyone who has ever killed should be killed. That means every cop who has done their job, every soldier who has done their job, and anyone defending their home or family should be killed. Is that what you meant? I highly doubt it, but a statement like that is pretty much an oxymoron. This is even stranger yet from one that goes by the name with soldier in it and an avatar of a soldier.
If your last statement were taken to heart the killing would never end and soon everyone would be gone.

The death penalty does nothing more than end one more life. In that post I mentioned with the other links I posted some links to those who have lost loved ones and still yet forgive. Not only do they forgive they ask that others forgive the offender also. They are not asking the person be set free simply asking that they not be killed. Many studies argue that life in prison with no parole is more punishment than death. Many inmates that are serving life with no parole would much rather be put to death.