could extensive death penalty reduce crime in long term?

[stormbind]

With miscarriage of justice being so common, you will be commiting crimes and preventing none.

 

[Rambuchan]

Why are you guys getting your knickers in such a percentages twist?

The point is the best ways of reducing crime is to deal with them BEFORE they are commited. Not wonder whether to kill them all or not after they have done it.

Cause of criminal activity. Causes of criminal activity. Causes.

 

[wit>trope]

Yes, it acknowledges that studies contradict each other.

Right so my statement that they contradict each other was not "false" as you claimed.

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.

LOL! The whole web site is geared against the death penalty and you say it has no bias!

Jeffrey Fagan is a PhD (in Police Science

Police Science is not a branch of mathematics or economics and so his PhD is mostly irrelevant. It'd be as useful as a PhD in music or biology.

he has a BE and MS in industrial engineering (you may know this involves a lot of math and statistics).

Industrial engineering is also not a branch of matehmatics or economics. It'll do you as much as good as a degree in music which also involves math to some degree ... or a degree in biology which also involves math to some degree.

He is currently a Professor at Columbia Law School

Law doesn't have anything to do with econometrics. Even study of the "Law and Economics" school of thought within the philosophy of law doesn't involve study of econometrics.

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.

You've got to be kidding me! There are loads of people more qualified than he. You could start with someone who actually possesses a degree in mathematics or a degree in economics with a specialization in econometrics -- such as some of the people who developed the econometric studies showing the deterrent effect.

 

[cgannon64]

I'm pretty sure it would increase the instances of Treason and Incitement of Riot.

 

[CruddyLeper]

No, never.

Hundreds of years we had the death penalty for minor thefts, and people kept getting hung.

Eventually people worked out that when the wrong person was convicted, the State murdered an innocent.

There's a fine line between crime and survival.

As for the genetic thing, if "criminal tendencies" are genetic, then the successfull criminals breed and just create more of them. I don't believe that hypothesis but it's a useful argument nontheless.

 

[wit>trope]

I thought I'd add that I don't have any moral objection to the death penalty per say.

But you do have a moral objection to it nevertheless. But my point was that he had a moral objection to it as is clear from what IIRC is the last sentence of his paper, speaking of the "human cost" or whatever of the death penalty as though killing them is a bad thing.

It is very worrying to me the extent to which executions follow racial and economic lines in the US

So you'd support it if it didn't have racial and economic bias? But assuming it has a bad racial and economic bias, the same would also be true of prison term punishments -- does that mean we should throw out prison term punishments? What if it turns out that prison term punishments have more bias than death penalty punishments? Should we then get rid of the former in favor of the latter? The presence of bias shouldn't be an issue. The presence of bias should lead to trying to get rid of the bias, not getting rid of the penalty altogether. Also if they are just as guilty, then who cares if there's bias? I mean let's say out of 100 blacks and 100 whites who are all guilty, 50 blacks get executed and 20 whites get executed ... well as long as the 30 extra blacks are still guilty, what's the problem?

 

[Jack the Ripper]

Look at the 50's. There was virtually no (violent) crime because more often then not the criminal would have a VERY speedy trial and ride the lightning within a week.

As far as heredity, it would not nessesarily root out the criminal at mind/heart but the stupid.

 

[WillJ]

@cierdan and Dell19: You both make good points, and I'll just "surrender" because I just realized the discussion is meaningless to the thread anyway (AFAIK). Well, I do have two things to say:

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.

You can just compare crime reports vs. prosecutions.

Granted, not all crimes are reported, but I'd imagine the percentage of crimes that are reported wouldn't be affected.

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.

Sorry, but I still am oblivious to your point.

 

[cgannon64]

It could prevent them from reproducing and thus reduce the frequency of crime-prone genes in the gene pool.

"Three generations of idiots is enough", eh? You should know where this kind of thought leads.

 

[pboily]

The solution is obvious: extend the death penalty to everyone presently alive. Then crime would be reduced in both the long term AND the short term.

 

[punkbass2000]

I agree with Gothmog, this question is poorly phrased. Of course it could have effects. I, however, voted "No", as it generally reflects my thoughts on the subject.

 

[Nobody]

well if you execute all criminals it stop reafending

 

[wilbill]

Look at the 50's. There was virtually no (violent) crime...

Actually, the (U.S.) murder rate in the 1950's was only slightly lower than it is currently. There were a little less than 5 murders/100 thousand population in the '50's, around 6/100 thousand now and that's up a little since 2000.

If the death penalty has a deterrent effect, England in the 1700's should have eliminated crime. There were over 200 crimes punishable by death, including stealing, cutting down a tree, and robbing a rabbit warren. It would appear the deterrent effect didn't wipe out crime. I believe England still has prisons.

 

[wilbill]

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.

Of course, it's pure speculation that there even is such a thing as "crime-prone genes". There are indications (not proof) that some behaviors (agression, deception, etc.) that can contribute to criminal acts may have a genetic component, but it's far from proven that, even if those behaviors are genetic in nature, they will lead to criminal acts independent of environmental factors.

There are a lot of agressive people whose behavior never escalates to violent crime.

 

[Elrohir]

Yes, it would take out violent criminals early, and get rid of some of the more violent people in our gene pool.

Of course whether doing this by killing large numbers of people would be a good thing is debatable.

 

[BloodyPepperoni]

Criminals, hostage talers & co won't surrender to the cops since they wont have anything to lose. So expect a rise of police casualties as well.

 

[Elrohir]

Criminals, hostage talers & co won't surrender to the cops since they wont have anything to lose. So expect a rise of police casualties as well.

But there will be, in the long run, fewer criminals, hostage takers and such to be desperate.

 

[wit>trope]

Criminals, hostage talers & co won't surrender to the cops since they wont have anything to lose. So expect a rise of police casualties as well.

I don't get why they use measly cops to fight them. They should bring in the military instead. Sometimes the cops are outgunned and it seems stupid to rely on them when you can rely on the military instead (either that or just give the cops more powerful weapons ... may not be a good idea actually because of renegade judges that usurp control over cops)

 

[carlosMM]

crime is not genetic. period.

 

[Shaihulud]

Death penalty would definitely reduce crime, however it must not a short term solution but an end to the means. You have to ask yourself wether it is worth it if an innocent person is executed, because they will be eventually. Why? Because to make it feasible you have to shorten the procedure to ensure "beyond reasonable doubts". for a real life example, look at Singapore, the highest execution per population. Crimes are low there.