Deterrence

Additional Resources

Archival DPIC Content

Articles and Other Resources

Fact sheets from Equal Justice USA and Death Penalty Focus on the death penalty and prison murders
Michael L. Radelet, Traci L. Lacock, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates?: The Views of Leading Criminologists, 99 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 489 (2008-2009)
National Research Council, Deterrence and the Death Penalty (The National Academies Press 2012)
Death Penalty Information Center, Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? Exploring murder rates, killings of police officers, and the death penalty (2017 podcast), Supporting data and analysis methods
Scientific American Podcast: U.C. Berkeley School of Law professor Franklin Zimring talks about his article, “How New York Beat Crime,” in the August 2011 issue of Scientific American. (Broadcast date: 8/9/2011)

In This Section

National Academies Report on Deterrence Studies

A report released in 2012 by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed.

Evangelical Pastor Rich Nathan Discusses How a “Culture of Life” Informs His Opposition to the Death Penalty

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

Brennan Center for Justice Report: What Caused the Crime Decline?

Law Enforcement Views on Deterrence

International Dialogue: Police Officials Argue Death Penalty Doesn’t Make Us Safer

Law enforcement officials who came together in Washington, D.C., in 2010 for an international dialogue on the death penalty argue that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that societies are better off without it.