Policy Issues

Deterrence

Studies show no link between the presence or absence of the death penalty and murder rates.

DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC

Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? Exploring mur­der rates, killings of police offi­cers, and the death penalty

DPIC Page: Murder Rates

View DPIC’s infor­ma­tion about state-by-state mur­der rates. State and region­al mur­der sta­tis­tics show no cor­re­la­tion between use of the death penal­ty and reduced crime.

Overview

Deterrence is probably the most commonly expressed rationale for the death penalty. The essence of the theory is that the threat of being executed in the future will be sufficient to cause a significant number of people to refrain from committing a heinous crime they had otherwise planned. Deterrence is not principally concerned with the prevention of further killing by an already convicted death-penalty defendant. That falls under the topic of incapacitation.

Deterrence should not be considered in a vacuum. The critical question is not whether potential criminals will be dissuaded from killing because they would face the death penalty rather than no punishment at all. Other punishments such as life without parole might provide equal deterrence at far less costs and without the attendant risk of executing an innocent person. Whether the death penalty is a proven method of lowering the murder rate has been subjected to many studies over many decades.

It is not enough to compare jurisdictions with the death penalty to those without unless the study controls for the many other variables that could affect the murder rate. For example, lower unemployment rates correlate with lower crime rates. More police involvement in the local community seems to reduce crime. The death penalty affects only a tiny percentage of even those who commit murder. Its effect is very difficult to pinpoint, and the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that past studies have neither proven nor disproven a deterrent effect.

At Issue

If the death penalty is not a proven deterrent to murder, is it worth the excessive costs, risks of error, uncertainty of completion, and other problems that are inherent to its practice? On the political level, the deterrent value of the death penalty is often taken for granted without a careful examination of the research or a consideration of less risky alternatives. This is especially relevant given that death penalty use has been declining dramatically. Most states are not carrying out any executions in a given year.

What DPIC Offers

DPIC has collected many of the deterrent studies that have been conducted in the modern era and has summarized their results. It also provides some of the raw data on which such studies rely, such as the murder rate for each state in each year in the modern era, along with the number of executions and death sentences for each state in the same periods.


News & Developments


News

Apr 06, 2023

RESEARCH: Halting the Use of the Death Penalty Did Not Result in an Increase in Homicide Rates

Stephen Oliphant’s recent study on the death penalty’s effect on homi­cide rates pub­lished in Criminology & Public Policy found no evi­dence of a deter­rent effect attrib­ut­able to death penal­ty statutes.” Oliphant first dis­cuss­es deter­rence the­o­ry, which posits that pun­ish­ment, or the threat of pun­ish­ment, dis­cour­ages indi­vid­u­als from com­mit­ting crime,” and its role in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment dis­course, where pro­po­nents of the death penal­ty have argued that the threat of the death penal­ty dis­cour­ages homi­cide, and that abo­li­tion (or a halt to the use of the death penal­ty) would lead to increased…

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News

Feb 21, 2022

56 Prosecutors Issue Joint Statement Calling for End of Broken’ Death Penalty

Calling cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. bro­ken,” 56 elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors from across the coun­try have issued a joint state­ment urg­ing sys­temic changes to end the death penal­ty nation­wide. As an ini­tial step, the pros­e­cu­tors pledged to not seek the death penal­ty against peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, his­to­ries of trau­mat­ic brain injury, or oth­er intel­lec­tu­al or cog­ni­tive chal­lenges that dimin­ish their abil­i­ty to ful­ly under­stand and reg­u­late their own actions.”

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News

Jan 12, 2022

DPIC Podcast: Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton on Bringing Fairness and Equity to Criminal Legal Reform and Ending the Death Penalty

In the January 2022 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Contra Costa County, California District Attorney Diana Becton (pic­tured), speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about the rise in reform pros­e­cu­tors across the coun­try, the inher­ent flaws in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that led her to work along­side oth­er reform pros­e­cu­tors to end the death penal­ty, and her efforts as dis­trict attor­ney to bring fair­ness and equi­ty to the crim­i­nal legal system.

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News

Sep 08, 2021

Legislators Plan New Attempt to Repeal Utah Capital Punishment Law, as Prominent County Attorney Announces He Will No Longer Seek the Death Penalty

Efforts to end the death penal­ty in Utah edged for­ward on September 8, 2021 as two Republican leg­is­la­tors revealed plans to intro­duce leg­is­la­tion to repeal and replace” the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law and the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney in the state’s sec­ond most pop­u­lous coun­ty declared that he would no longer seek the death penal­ty in future cases.

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News

Aug 31, 2021

New Podcast: Rethinking Public Safety, A Conversation with Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution, Miriam Krinsky

In the third episode of the Discussions with DPIC podcast’s Rethinking Public Safety series, Miriam Krinsky (pic­tured) speaks with DPIC Senior Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue about her expe­ri­ences as a for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor and the Executive Director of Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP), a net­work of elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors devot­ed to pro­mot­ing fair­ness, equi­ty, com­pas­sion, and fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty in the crim­i­nal legal system.

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News

Jan 07, 2021

St. Louis County Prosecutor: Death Penalty is Ineffective, Racially Biased, Hypocritical and Inhumane’

Calling the death penal­ty inef­fec­tive, racial­ly based, hyp­o­crit­i­cal and inhu­mane,” St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell (pic­tured) has renewed his pledge to nev­er autho­rize a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion. In a December 23, 2020 op-ed in the St. Louis American, Bell urged all pros­e­cu­tors in Missouri who cur­rent­ly con­sid­er the death penal­ty an option to stop.”

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