could extensive death penalty reduce crime in long term?

[WillJ]

Crime would probably increase through general low motivation in that punishments are too severe for the crime.

I agree that people might protest, but you really think people would protest by committing crimes?!

The death penalty actually costs more than prison time so everyone gets poorer generating a vicious circle...

That's only because of court costs. I'm sure any government insane enough to impose the death penalty on highway speedsters wouldn't care too much about innocence until proven guilty.

Family groups destroyed leading to poor parenting and increasing crime rates.

Good point. It wouldn't make sense to overpenalize criminals that are already parents, for the same reason that it might make sense (in some sort of twisted way) to kill criminals that have yet to have kids.

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.

That's just not true. We're talking about the RELATIONSHIP between two factors in affecting crime. If other things affect crime, that's great, but unless they affect this relationship, they're irrelevant when it comes to the relationship.

An analogy would be a company considering whether to increase its number of employees or increase its number of computers, considering how these affect costs and profits. Sure, plenty of other things affect costs and profits (and when it comes to profits, many of these can't be controlled), but that's not relevant to the decision of employees vs. computers.

As for why anyone should care about this relationship of penalties vs. chances in the same way a company might care about employees vs. computers, I'm actually not sure, since it's not like stiffening penalties and beefing up police forces are mutually exclusive. After all, stiffening penalties doesn't cost anything (ignoring any ethical concern with making sure that the people receiving them are truly proven guilty).

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.

Huh?

 

[WillJ]

I have to go now, but just so you know, cierdan, I'll be back and I haven't missed your post.

 

[Dell19]

Everything above your confused smilie was an oversimplification in response to yours...

An analogy would be a company considering whether to increase its number of employees or increase its number of computers, considering how these affect costs and profits. Sure, plenty of other things affect costs and profits (and when it comes to profits, many of these can't be controlled), but that's not relevant to the decision of employees vs. computers.

One of the problems with implementing a computer system is that it is difficult to quantify the benefits. There are lots of intangible effects that cannot be measured that may be positive or negative. You have to consider other factors in your example as otherwise you replace half your staff with computers and then the remaining staff quit or sabotage the system because you've just sacked half their friends. So it is relevant and if you oversimply things you make idiotic decisions that lead to failure. Sure in some situations like replacing a machine something like Net present Value can give a realistic value but crime is far more complex and thus far more complex to simulate and to identify correct decisions from them.

0.000001 x 1 = 0.000001 and 0.000001 x 0.1 = 0.0000001 A large change to one side is insignificant because the other side is so small.

 

[stormbind]

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.

I don't think anything I say (or anything anyone else says) can change your opinion. For that reason I'm staying well out of this!

I'm just going to hope you discover this page (and read it) by yourself.

 

[wit>trope]

I don't think anything I say (or anything anyone else says) can change your opinion.

I change my opinion all the time but I change it based on arguments rather than ad hominems

 

[North King]

Voted don't know, because you didn't include an Other option.

It might reduce crime cause there are so many potentials dead. But then, it's morally rehensible.

 

[stormbind]

It cannot reduce crime: It is a crime!

 

[Gothmog]

cierdan's point about the difficulty of studying this sort of phenomina is a good one, it is difficult.
But the social sciences have had decades to work out protocal's that help tease out relevant information. Sometimes it's possible other times not.

In the case of the death penalty as a deterent it is quite clear that the biggest factor that affects crime rates relevant to the death penalty is the rates from the previous year. This effect is called autoregression and must be accounted for if a study is to have any validity.

There are many studies on this topic, and it seems that the death penalty does not have a significant deterent effect on crime.

Here's a good web page full of facts: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

They have a page dedicated to the issue of deterence, the link is on the left side of the home page.

On that page there is a nice critical review of recent work by a Columbia law school professor, given late Jan 2005 to a Judicial committee in New York: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FaganTestimony.pdf

here's a bit of the conclusion

Murder is a complex and multiply determined phenomenon, with cyclical patterns for over 40 years of distinct periods of increase and decline that are not unlike epidemics of contagious diseases. There is no reliable, scientifically sound evidence that execution can exert an effect that either acts separately and sufficiently powerfully to overwhelm these consistent and recurring epidemic patterns.

The hypothesis of 'crime-prone genes' is weak, but I can't rule it out entirely.

It seems very clear that currently sociological factors (e.g. poverty and education) are the overwhelming factors, if there is an additional genetic component IMO it is likely activated by environmental factors as well.

That is, the same genes that might influence a poor uneducated person to commit serious crimes could be the same ones that in a rich educated person influence them to be a CEO etc.

So I would say the question is poorly framed and I didn't vote.

 

[wit>trope]

There are many studies on this topic, and it seems that the death penalty does not have a significant deterent effect on crime.

Actually the studies contradict one another and they use a variety of methods. The studies generally cited for the death penalty not having a deterrent effect are naive comparative models that just use simple comparison of the data. The studies that are of any value are ones that use advanced econometric models. Among these the good ones all show that there is a deterrent effect.

 

[Gothmog]

Did you even look at the link I provided?

It goes over the range of different methods used and their various pro's and con's. It goes farther into the statistical analysis than anyone here would want to read. There is extensive review of the published literature back to the early 70's.

Your claim is simply false.

 

[wit>trope]

Did you even look at the link I provided?

You mean the link where it acknowledges that the studies contradict each other when it says that there are indeed "studies claiming that executions reduce murders" and that "since 1995, more than a dozen studies have been published claiming that the death penalty has a strong deterrent effect"?

That person's analysis (who doesn't even have a degree in math or economics apparently despite touting his "training" in statistics and econometrics) is obviously biased since it is evident that he has a moral objection to the death penalty.

 

[Stapel]

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)



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.

Science does not require a lab. Chemistry science does. Human behaviour science usually not.

Dude, there is evidence on the effect of the chance of getting caught. Tons of it! Police reports for instance. The effect of cameras vs the effect of jail?
Well, whatever you want to think......

 

[Gothmog]

Yes, it acknowledges that studies contradict each other. And discusses the statistical reasons for those contradictions. It goes deep into the specific data and analysis used. Any good review work will acknowledge the full bredth of work in a field and attempt to explain it.

I didn't just mean the one pdf I linked to (though that is a good read, you obviously only skimmed it). The whole web site is full of facts, not bias.

Do you have any way to discount the issue I raise above (autoregression), or even address it? There is lots of other stuff to discuss in the pdf and on the web site, but it is mostly very involved - I'm sure you don't want to go there.

Jeffrey Fagan is a PhD (in Police Science after designing and testing a statistical model - his thesis title "A Predictive Model of Success in Criminal Justice Employment Programs."), he has a BE and MS in industrial engineering (you may know this involves a lot of math and statistics). He is currently a Professor at Columbia Law School and adjunct in the departments of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences. A fellow in the American Society of Criminology.

Please, if you know of anyone more qualified to review the work in this field - let me know. Untill then you are just blowing smoke.

 

[Akka]

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.

No, you just have to open your eyes to the real world, and not the vision you want to have, and see for yourself that "being sure to be caught is a better deterrent than being heavily punished" is true on all levels from all time.

Now, as Stormbind pointed it, I'm doubt that anything would change your opinion, which seems to be dead set in what you prefer and not what is. As such, I'm afraid this discussion is pointless.

 

[ComradeDavo]

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.

Extensive use of death penalty?
Crime prone genes?

This idea is absurd.

 

[Keirador]

If the death penalty was used INCREDIBLY liberally, the yes, obviously more aggressive genes would be removed from the pool. So I voted yes, it would have both a deterrent effect and a gene pool effect. Scientifically, I believe that's just true. Of course, it's evil and insane, but it would still work, in an evil and insane way.

 

[stormbind]

How can you reduce crime by commiting crime?

 

[The Last Conformist]

How can you reduce crime by commiting crime?

By commiting a crime that prevents more than one other crime. Duh!

 

[wit>trope]

By commiting a crime that prevents more than one other crime. Duh!

Yep! I tried to point this out in the thread on abortion but you stated the truth much more succintly and obviously

 

[Gothmog]

Just checked back to see if cierdan had any fire behind his smoke... I guess not.

moral objection to the death penalty.

I thought I'd add that I don't have any moral objection to the death penalty per say. It is very worrying to me the extent to which executions follow racial and economic lines in the US, and I do not approve of the way it is carried out here for these reasons along with the economic expense. I definitely agree that some people should be removed from our society by whatever means.

As far as the deterence issue, I wish it did have that effect. I'm just trying to look objectively at the facts.

Also I like to think of justice in terms of rehabilitation instead of revenge (though I know it is a somewhat naive view) and the death penalty tarnishes that view.