Do you think the Death penalty deters crime??

YDoncha_Blowme

In America? Obviously not - look at the crime rate. Look at how many people get killing in Oakland over one weekend.... That prettty much sums it up.

I used to live in Saidi Arabia. There, they force expatriots (people from outside the country) to watch public beheadings and punishments so as to deter crime. While I was there, I was forced to watch a beheading and a man have his hand cut off for stealing. Does it deter crime? Well, seeing as I had to view it means that someone had commited some act to receive the punishment....so Id have to say it doesnt deter crime the way you think it would. People still steal and kill.... There is really no way of knowing what it would be like if they didnt do that in those countries... Would the crime rate increase? Maybe...maybe not....

Katelyn P

No...I think anyone who is willing to commit a crime henious enough to deserve the death penalty...must be so crazy that they wouldn't care if they died.

Itrolla

Not really.

PraiseBob

No, but it does remove repeat ultra-violent offenders from society.

Essex Ron

Statistically, not one single person who has been executed has EVER committed another murder, or any other crime.

In that respect it is 100% successful.

Unfortunately, in the EU it is banned by EU law (except for babies, who are executed in their thousands despite never having committed a crime - or, indeed, being born).

joe b

Dead people don't commit crimes.

Kainoa

No, because most criminals think they won't be caught, also look at how many are still sitting in death row years or even decades after sentencing.

The othe thing too is that the death penalty is applicable to crimes of passion. If a man came home and found his wife in bed with another man and he killed them, garaunteed he is not in the right frame of mind and consider what consequence might be.

Answerman

No, since most capital crimes are crimes of passion the consequences play very little in the decision to do them. Heat of the moment crimes make up a large majority of the death penalty crimes.

College Guy

No, do you think the criminal minds care? They do not. Criminal will always be criminal with or without death penalty. I do not believe in death penalty becuase is a barbarian practice. I wish the US laws will actully apply instead of given shorter sentences for "good conduct," "over population" in jails, or because the crimal is White, Black, Brown, Yellow, or Purple. The is law is the law and should be execute to anyone. This may help crime redution.

Gilla

Why do people think that if a criminals see another criminal die for his crimes that he will become a born again? Criminals or those that will be have no sense. The only thing it teaches the next person is how to not get caught. They could easily acess Criminalhistory.com and find out what they did or didn't do wrong.
You don't become a criminal because someone's has gotten caught because of something. If you want to commit a crime then the choice is there to be made. Someone isn't making the choice for you.

Will M

No not all the time, just look at the high rate of crime in the US alone esp: Baltimore City Maryland.

scorpio

Only when they actually enforce it. Not just talk about the threat of it. That is not why we have it thou. Not so much to keep crime down but actually punish the person that committed the crime. Rehabilitation may not always work but we know for a fact that every time we use the death penalty that the person has never committed another crime after that.

chocolate-drop

Of course it doesn't.

voltaire

There is no evidence that the death penalty is a deterrent to the crimes for which it applies in the United States. The several states that have no death penalty (Michigan, Massachusetts, Maine, Alaska, Hawaii, Minnesota, West Virginia, Vermont, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Rhode Island), for example, have, year in and year out, a lower murder rate than the death states have. Most scholars do not believe there is any relation between having a death penalty and having lower murder rates (however often that occurs). Whether the death penalty is a deterrent is not a good question. Of course it is a deterrent. The question is whether the death penalty is a greater deterrent than other readily available alternative sanctions, such as life imprisonment. As for me, I would much rather suffer a needle in the arm than a life in prison - but interestingly, I will never consider killing anyone in an abolition state such as Massachusetts. People murder because they are 1) angry, 2) trying to gain advantage (such as robbing someone). Rarely ever does a careful evaluation of penalties ever come into consideration.

It should be pointed out however that the death penalty is not, and has never been, factually based on a demonstrated or putative deterrent effect. The death penalty is a sop to the victimized and an expression of state authority over life and death, not a rational response to crime. Death penalty support is emotion-based, not reason-based.

liverpoolbootle

they have it in many countries and if those countries had ZERO crime then id say yes but it doesnt even deter drug smugglers in
Laosor pedos in thailand so IT DOESNT WORK!!!

Naples_6

I don't know if it keeps the crime rate down or not, but I know I feel better each time they put a child killer or serial killer to death.

johnwayne

Yes!!! I KNOW it does. If a criminal commits murder and serves 10 years and gets out again and commits another murder, that is not deterring crime. On the other hand, if a criminal commits murder and gets the death penalty; when the penalty is applied, that is a DETERRENT.

Lori H

Yes, but I think it would deter crime alot better if a defendant didn't get to set on death row for 20 years going thru every possible legal move in the book to try and get off of death row. Give them 1 mandatory appeal and then execute them.

firewomen

NO!

Meow the cat

It is not supposed to be a deterent. It is a punishment for a crime. It could deter some folks if it was applied swiftly and on TV for all to see.

senior citizen

Prison psychologist Donald Powell Wilson wrote in his book "My Six Convicts" that it didn't. The book was written long ago. I read it as a youngster. Maybe things have changed, maybe not. A few things we do know: Criminals murder and rape other criminals while in prison, sometimes they murder their guards, and some run crime rings from their prison cells..

We feel pretty sure that once criminals are dead, they don't commit any more crimes.

echiasso

Most dead people are no longer able to commit crimes.
There may be exceptions to this rule, especially at this time of year.
Happy Halloween.

turboweegie

It has 100% effectiveness on preventing recidivism.

shermynewstart

No, but it eliminates the ones who might be let out to commit other violent crimes. I find it interesting that the religious right wants to out-law abortion, but loves the death penalty. They would rather have them born, grow up in poverty (because they don't like any children's services, etc) then become murderers, then kill them.

JennoftheJungle

It would if they used it.

no-duh yoda

For the guy who gets fried, sure. He likely wont recidivate.

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