could extensive death penalty reduce crime in long term?

[Rik Meleet]

doesn't that depend on the nature of the crime (compare tax fraud to drunken driving).

Only at first glance. The decision to commit a crime or not has more to do with the chance of getting caught than with the penalty on it.

Likewise if the penalties were extreme barbaric torture where people are continually burned but kept alive for years so that they are on fire all the time for like 40 years, then even if the chances of getting caught were twice as low, the crime rate would be much lower. And even if the chance of getting caught is 100% (which is impossible), if the penalty was nothing, then it would have no effect on crime. Likewise if the chance of getting caught is 99%, if the penalty were a fine of one penny, it would have no effect on crime.

The deterrent effect is simply a product of the two factors of chance of getting caught and punishment:

DE=PUN*CAU

It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that either one of these factors is irrelevant or that one can be paid attention to while completely ignoring the other.

It seems you are right; but it's not what this thread is really about. The question is if extensive use of the deathpenalty will reduce crime. If the penalty for a crime is either death or 159 years in prison, it makes no difference on the formula. 1 penny or death of course does. But again: that's not the topic.

If the penalty for small crimes (speeding) is the death-penalty; I think it will lead to an uprising and an exodus for oppression. In my opinion we're talking about big crimes where the criminal is getting a severe penalty (10 years in prison for instance).

 

[Bartleby]

But if we killed everyone you could still say that the crime rate was 100% since 100% of the people still alive are committing crime. So killing everyone would not be a solution to reducing the crime rate

Can you have 100% of zero?

 

[wit>trope]

Can you have 100% of zero?

Sure. 100% of zero is equal to zero. % just means divided by 100. So 70% of 10 just means (70/100)*10. So 100% of zero would be (100/100)*0.

 

[Bartleby]

then what is 1% of zero?

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Crimes that warrant the death penalty are committed by the mentally ill, jerks and 'deadenders' who generally act without giving much thought to the consequences. The threat of a death penalty doesnt deter people like that.

 

[wit>trope]

then what is 1% of zero?

1% of zero is also zero

 

[Bartleby]

ergo 1%=100%

 

[Stapel]

READ BEFORE VOTING!

Besides detterance, EXTENSIVE use of death penalty for lots of crimes could reduce crime in the long term in another way. It could prevent them from reproducing and thus reduce the frequency of crime-prone genes in the gene pool.

Do you have any scientific clue (not proof, not evidence, just a CLUE) there are crime-prone genes?????

I do have scientific evidence crime is related to education and circumstances.

 

[Stapel]

The deterrent effect is simply a product of the two factors of chance of getting caught and punishment:

DE=PUN*CAU

It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that either one of these factors is irrelevant or that one can be paid attention to while completely ignoring the other.

Though you are basically right, it's not so simple.
There is scientific evidence the "chance of getting caught" is far more important. Numerous studies show this.

Maybe:
De=PUN*CAU*CAU*CAU*CAU?

You're way of simplifying this matter is quite foolish, me thinks.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Do you have any scientific clue (not proof, not evidence, just a CLUE) there are crime-prone genes?????

I do have scientific evidence crime is related to education and circumstances.

For whatever reason, men with XYY sex chromosomes are more likely than normal men to end up in prison (google on it if you're interested in numbers). Given that most criminals are men already, it seems reasonably to suppose that some gene or genes on the Y chromosome is "crime-prone".

Given what we know of know of male and female psychology and what crimes the sexes tendentially commit, one'd even feel inclined to suggest that the link is aggressivity.

Conclusion: Execute all men an crime rates will drop. But we knew this already.

 

[wit>trope]

Though you are basically right, it's not so simple.

Well I wanted to keep it simple so as to keep it understandable. For a moment I considered writing it like this:

DE=f(PUN)*g(CAU)

There is scientific evidence the "chance of getting caught" is far more important.

No there isn't as I explained to TLC and as I'll explain further below.

Numerous studies show this.

It's impossible for there to be any such studies that are not inherently and fatally flawed (or as is more likely just badly interpreted and falsely propagandized) because except when dealing with quantifiable data like fines to the exclusion of prison terms and death or prison terms to the exclusion of fines and death, it's not possible to compare the two in a quantifiably commensurate way. For example, you can't compare the relative importance of increasing the 30 years in prison to death to increasing the chance of getting caught by the same percentage because the increase from 30 years in prison to death cannot be quantified as a percentage. The penalty of death is not for example 10% or 50% or 200% greater than the penalty of 30 years in prison.

 

[Akka]

Likewise if the penalties were extreme barbaric torture where people are continually burned but kept alive for years so that they are on fire all the time for like 40 years, then even if the chances of getting caught were twice as low, the crime rate would be much lower.

Well, just look at the (evaluated) crime rate of the XVIIIth century, where torture was commonplace, but chances of being caught were lower.

Additionnally, if you know you'll be tortured for years, it's barely worse than being condemned to death, as the guy who is about to be captured would probably simply commit suicide or fight to the death.
Also, the fear of the punishment would probably crush the faith in the justice system and make it seems as an horrible oppressive dictatorship (if you know that, in case of a judiciary error, you'll spend decades of abominable torture, you'll tend to resist arrest rather than trusting that you'll be recognized innocent). And as it's the case with perceived arbitrary rules, it will lead to increased crime and disobedience rather than the opposite.

That being said, I don't deny that more severe penalties would effect crime, but I say that the effect would be considerably less than an increase of probability of being caught, and that the effect of barbaric penalties has a "cap" that is quickly reached.

And even if the chance of getting caught is 100% (which is impossible), if the penalty was nothing, then it would have no effect on crime. Likewise if the chance of getting caught is 99%, if the penalty were a fine of one penny, it would have no effect on crime.

Of course. But even simply a GUARANTEED single year in prison would deter most crimes (except, of course, the passionnate crimes, which would happen whatever the penalty is anyway).
Because nobody want to spend time in prison, and if you're caught for a crime, all the benefit you had from this crime are confiscated. The net effect would simply be : "lose one year of your life, no benefit". Nobody does things that have this kind of result.

The deterrent effect is simply a product of the two factors of chance of getting caught and punishment:

DE=PUN*CAU

It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that either one of these factors is irrelevant or that one can be paid attention to while completely ignoring the other.

As Carlos said, it's not because there is two factors, that both have the same weight.
We can't really totally ignore one or the other factor, but we can LARGELY ignore the "penalty" one if we can raise the "caught" one close to 100 %.

This is speaking, of course, about the pure "utilitarian" way of minimizing crime. Even if very effectively deterred, murder, rape and other heinous crime would still require heavy penalties purely out of sense of justice and revenge.

 

[Stapel]

Well I wanted to keep it simple so as to keep it understandable. For a moment I considered writing it like this:

DE=f(PUN)*g(CAU)



No there isn't as I explained to TLC and as I'll explain further below.



It's impossible for there to be any such studies that are not inherently and fatally flawed because except when dealing with quantifiable data like fines to the exclusion of prison terms and death or prison terms to the exclusion of fines and death, it's not possible to compare the two in a quantifiably commensurate way. For example, you can't compare the relative importance of increasing the chance of getting caught by a certain percent with increasing the penalty from 30 years in prison to death because the increase from 30 years in prison to death cannot be quantified as a percentage. The penalty of death is not for example 10% or 50% or 200% greater than the penalty of 30 years in prison.

The only thing we can't do, is exactly quantifying the effects.

There simply is scientific evidence the "chance of getting caught" is far more important!!!!

And if you choose to believe otherwise, that's fine with me!

 

[wit>trope]

The only thing we can't do, is exactly quantifying the effects.

If you can't quantify the effects then how can you compare the causes in a quantifiable way? (this wasn't my original argument, btw)

There simply is scientific evidence the "chance of getting caught" is far more important!!!!

No there isn't. Let's say you are in laboratory conditions and in one lab you raise the penalty from life in prison to death and crime is reduced by 10% and in another, separate lab you keep the penalty the same but increase the chance of getting caught from 50% to 75% and crime is reduced by 40%. Well that doesn't tell you that the chance of getting caught is more important then the severity of the penalty. It doesn't tell you anything at all about that because you could have just as well had two labs where in one lab you raised the penalty from 1 day in jail to death and in the other lab you increased the chance of getting caught from 50% to 50.0048% and found that in the former lab crime was reduced more than in the latter lab.

 

[wit>trope]

As Carlos said, it's not because there is two factors, that both have the same weight.

To see which one has more weight you'd have to:

1. Start with equal amounts of punishment and the chance of getting caught.

2. In one lab increase the chance of getting caught by a percentage and in another increase the amount of punishment by the same exact percentage.

3. Compare the results.

But there's no way to do this because we don't even have any idea what equal amounts of punishment and the chance of getting caught are. Is 10% chance of getting caught equal to 7 years in prison? There's just no way to compare it like that. Also increasing the penalty from life in prison to death doesn't involve an increase that can be quantified as a percentage.

 

[WillJ]

For example, you can't compare the relative importance of increasing the 30 years in prison to death to increasing the chance of getting caught by the same percentage because the increase from 30 years in prison to death cannot be quantified as a percentage.

Uh, yes it can. Let's say you increase the penalty for a crime from 15 years to 30 years. That's a 100% increase. You'd compare it with an increase in police force strength that results in a doubling of the chance of getting caught.

Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom.

The penalty of death is not for example 10% or 50% or 200% greater than the penalty of 30 years in prison.

You're right, the dealth penalty complicates things. I'm not sure how studies could involve that.

But anyway, I think Stapel is overgeneralizing when he says that the chance of getting caught is more important. I'd be surprised if this is true for crimes of calculation---tax fraud, kidnappings for ransom, etc. Stapel, do you (or anyone else) actually have links to these studies you speak of?

 

[Dell19]

Quickly glancing through are you really trying to measure crime rate through just 2 quantitative measures when there are far more factors and completely ignoring qualitative factors? A bit like doing time and motion studies. Great in the short term but totally misses the bigger picture and future problems are potentially huge.

 

[WillJ]

Oh, and to answer the poll question: Extensive use of the death penalty would obviously reduce crime dramatically both in the short and long term. Both because of a deterrant effect, and because of a "gene pool" effect, although technically it's not "genes" we're talking about. I've never heard of crime-prone genes. Nonetheless, it's obvious that children of criminals are more likely to become criminals than children of non-criminals (for socioeconomic reasons), and killing off the criminals before they become parents would thus reduce crime.

Not that this is actually ethical.

Quickly glancing through are you really trying to measure crime rate through just 2 quantitative measures when there are far more factors and completely ignoring qualitative factors?

Unless these qualitative factors and extra quantitative factors you speak of affect the ratio of the importance of punishment vs. chance of getting caught, they're irrelevant. Right?

 

[Dell19]

Oh, and to answer the poll question: Extensive use of the death penalty would obviously reduce crime dramatically both in the short and long term. Both because of a deterrant effect, and because of a "gene pool" effect, although technically it's not "genes" we're talking about. I've never heard of crime-prone genes. Nonetheless, it's obvious that children of criminals are more likely to become criminals than children of non-criminals (for socioeconomic reasons), and killing off the criminals before they become parents would thus reduce crime.

Crime would probably increase through general low motivation in that punishments are too severe for the crime. The death penalty actually costs more than prison time so everyone gets poorer generating a vicious circle... Family groups destroyed leading to poor parenting and increasing crime rates.

Oversimplifications are great.

The point about the other factors is that they make the relationship irrelevant as it can't even be tested because you cannot eliminate the other factors. I would suggest that the smaller number has the most significance as a small percentage doesn't get any bigger regardless of the other factor.

 

[wit>trope]

Uh, yes it can. Let's say you increase the penalty for a crime from 15 years to 30 years. That's a 100% increase.

But in what you quoted I was talking about increasing it from 30 years to death. There's also a more basic problem with saying that it is a 100% increase. It is a 100% increase in the amount of time absolutely speaking, but is that a good way to make a comparison? I don't think so since:

1. If you measure it as not the percentage increase in prison term but the percentage decrease in life outside of prison, then the percentage would be a lot different. So for example with a life expectancy of 100 years, increasing the prison term by 100% from 15 to 30 will only decrease the amount of life outside of prison by 15% but increasing the prison term by 100% from 30 to 60 years will decrease the amount of life outside of prison by 30%. So measured one way, increasing the term from 15 to 30 and increasing the term from 30 to 60 is the same percentage change; but measured another way the percentage change is actually different. You could also measure the percentage change as a differential of the amount of life outside of prison in which case the percentages would be ~17.6% and ~33.3%

2. 30 years for a 98 year old person with perhaps only 2 years left of his life is different than 30 years for a 20 year old person who would most likely serve out the term. And this difference can't be quantified since the 98 year old person might actually hate the 30 year term MORE than the 20 year old person because the 98 year old person might be very averse to dying in prison.

3. The level of punishment represented by 30 years is not necessarily double the amount represented by 15 years even absolutely speaking. To illustrate, if people were offered 2,000 dollars to spend one day in prison, some would accept. But if the very same people were offered 200,000 dollars to spend 100 days in prison, some of those who accepted would not accept and some who didn't accept would accept and the resulting number wouldn't be the same. So this shows that 100 days in prison cannot be quantified as 100 times more punishment than 1 day in prison in the way that 200,000 dollars is 100 times 2,000 dollars.

4. A host of other reasons.

On the calculating the percentage change in getting caught, there's much less problems but there's still the problem of how to calculate the percentage. For example, if the percentage chance of getting caught is 90% and it is increased to 99.98% then you could say that the percent change was ~11.089% or you could say that the percent change was 99.8% (which is by what percent the chance of not getting caught is reduced)

You'd compare it with an increase in police force strength that results in a doubling of the chance of getting caught.

There's no way to even know what the chance of getting caught is since those who don't get caught don't tell us what they did and so you can't determine what percentage get caught.