On the Front Line: Law Enforcement Views on the Death Penalty

A new nation­al sur­vey of police chiefs from around the coun­try dis­cred­its the repeat­ed asser­tion that the death penal­ty is an impor­tant law enforce­ment tool. While politi­cians have extolled the impor­tance of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in fight­ing crime, they have failed to assess the actu­al pri­or­i­ties of those in law enforce­ment and have sad­dled the tax­pay­ers with an enor­mous­ly cost­ly death penal­ty at the expense of more effec­tive crime fighting strategies.

In January, 1995, Peter D. Hart Research Associates con­duct­ed a nation­al opin­ion poll of ran­dom­ly select­ed police chiefs in the United States. In that poll, the chiefs had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to express what they believe real­ly works in fight­ing crime. They were asked where the death penal­ty fit in their pri­or­i­ties as lead­ers in the law enforce­ment field. What the police chiefs had to say may be sur­pris­ing to many law­mak­ers, and to much of the pub­lic as well. The Hart Poll found that:

• Police chiefs rank the death penal­ty last as a way of reduc­ing vio­lent crime, plac­ing it behind curb­ing drug abuse, more police offi­cers on the streets, low­er­ing the tech­ni­cal bar­ri­ers to pros­e­cu­tion, longer sen­tences, and a bet­ter econ­o­my with more jobs.
• The death penal­ty was rat­ed as the least cost-effec­tive method for controlling crime.
• Insufficient use of the death penal­ty is not con­sid­ered a major prob­lem by the major­i­ty of police chiefs.
• Strengthening fam­i­lies and neigh­bor­hoods, pun­ish­ing crim­i­nals swift­ly and sure­ly, con­trol­ling ille­gal drugs, and gun con­trol are con­sid­ered much more impor­tant than the death penalty.
• Although a major­i­ty of the police chiefs sup­port the death penal­ty in the abstract, when giv­en a choice between the sen­tence of life with­out parole plus resti­tu­tion ver­sus the death penal­ty, bare­ly half of the chief­s­sup­port capital punishment.
• Police chiefs do not believe that the death penal­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the num­ber of homicides.
• Police chiefs do not believe that mur­der­ers think about the range of possible punishments.
• Debates about the death penal­ty dis­tract Congress and state leg­is­la­tures from focus­ing on real solu­tions to crime.

In sum, while many police chiefs sup­port the death penal­ty philo­soph­i­cal­ly, a strong major­i­ty do not believe that it is an effec­tive law enforce­ment tool in prac­tice. In the report below, the var­i­ous find­ings of this poll will be explored in depth, along with a broad­er analy­sis of what real­ly works in reduc­ing crime. The results of this opin­ion poll are con­firmed by the state­ments of indi­vid­ual lead­ers in the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty, by research in the field of crim­i­nol­o­gy, and by the rec­om­men­da­tions of many of the nation’s lead­ing law enforcement agencies.

In 1994, crime was the nation’s num­ber one con­cern. Despite polit­i­cal grid­lock on many oth­er issues, President Clinton was able to move a $30 bil­lion crime bill through Congress, includ­ing a major expan­sion of the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The elec­tions in November pro­duced a cas­cade of can­di­dates trip­ping over each oth­er to sound even tougher than their oppo­nent on crime. Campaign adver­tise­ments reached new lows in mon­ger­ing fear in the elec­torate in order to boost the chances of ​“law and order” politi­cians. Candidates used the death penal­ty as a club, even against those who supported it.

But few, if any, politi­cians took the time to ask those in law enforce­ment what they thought would real­ly work in pre­vent­ing crime. Was the death penal­ty, in fact, the top pri­or­i­ty for law enforce­ment that it was for the politicians?

Law enforce­ment offi­cers are soci­ety’s front line in fight­ing crime. They see it up close every day, and they have a per­son­al stake in reduc­ing vio­lence. So, it is nat­ur­al to ask them: ​“What, in your opin­ion, works in the bat­tle against crime?”

This ques­tion was approached from a vari­ety of direc­tions. Police were first giv­en an open-end­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to state the areas that would have the biggest impact on reduc­ing vio­lent crime in their juris­dic­tion. Sentencing reform, includ­ing truth in sen­tenc­ing, elim­i­na­tion of parole and stiffer sen­tences was the most often cit­ed area of reform (33% of respon­dents). Other areas of empha­sis includ­ed the devel­op­ment of fam­i­ly val­ues and par­ent­ing skills (23%), edu­ca­tion (15%), and more police (13%). The death penal­ty was men­tioned by few­er than 2% of the chiefs and fol­lowed twen­ty-five oth­er areas of concern.

The police chiefs were also asked to select their pri­ma­ry choic­es from a list of pos­si­ble ways to reduce vio­lent crime. The need to reduce the preva­lence of drug abuse was their first pri­or­i­ty. They also chose longer prison sen­tences for crim­i­nals, few­er tech­ni­cal legal bar­ri­ers to the pros­e­cu­tion of crim­i­nals, more police offi­cers on the street, a bet­ter econ­o­my with more jobs, and reduc­ing the num­ber of guns over an expand­ed use of the death penal­ty as bet­ter ways to low­er crime. Capital pun­ish­ment ranked a dis­tant last, with only 1% of the chiefs cit­ing it as their pri­ma­ry focus for stop­ping vio­lent crime. These results are illus­trat­ed in Figure 1 below.

In a sim­i­lar vein, the poll explored what the police chiefs see as the main obsta­cles to their suc­cess as they try to pro­tect cit­i­zens and fash­ion a safer soci­ety. Again, drug and alco­hol abuse sur­faced as the most fre­quent­ly men­tioned prob­lem fac­ing police forces today. Fully 87% chose this as a seri­ous prob­lem (i.e., ​“top two or three prob­lems” or as a ​“major prob­lem”) which they encounter in their work. Family prob­lems or child abuse was the sec­ond major obsta­cle for police, with 77% cit­ing this as a seri­ous prob­lem in their jurisdiction.

The police chiefs were even­ly split between those stat­ing that a lack of law enforce­ment resources was a seri­ous prob­lem (49%) and those who thought it was at most a minor prob­lem (50%). About 45% of the police chiefs stat­ed that the avail­abil­i­ty of too many guns was a seri­ous prob­lem. Interestingly, most of the chiefs did not see gangs as a major prob­lem in their efforts. Only 7% report­ed that gangs were one of their top two or three problems.

Other areas which were cit­ed as major prob­lems includ­ed crowd­ed courts and slow jus­tice. On the oth­er hand, inef­fec­tive pros­e­cu­tion and high unem­ploy­ment were only rat­ed as minor prob­lems. Again, the death penal­ty ranked near the bot­tom as a seri­ous con­cern for law enforcement officers.

Insufficient use of the death penal­ty was rat­ed as either a minor prob­lem or no prob­lem at all by 63% of the respon­dents. (See Figure 2).

No one is more keen­ly aware of the fact that pre­vent­ing crime costs mon­ey than police chiefs. Faced dai­ly with bud­get deci­sions and the ris­ing costs of salaries, train­ing and equip­ment for a police force, chiefs must con­stant­ly bal­ance emer­gency respons­es and long-term needs. The Hart Poll sought to dis­cov­er not only what police chiefs ide­al­ly want in the fight against crime, but also what are the most cost-effec­tive meth­ods avail­able to them.

Among strate­gies used for con­trol­ling crime, the death penal­ty ranked last in terms of its cost-effec­tive­ness. The relat­ed areas of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and expand­ed train­ing with more equip­ment for police, received the high­est cost-effec­tive rat­ings by the police chiefs among ways to reduce crime. Fifty-six per­cent of the respon­dents rat­ed these areas as cost-effec­tive (i.e., they gave it an 8, 9, or 10 out of a pos­si­ble 10). Imposing the death penal­ty more often was thought to be cost-effec­tive by only 29% of the chiefs. Neighborhood watch pro­grams ranked almost as high as com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing in terms of effec­tive­ness for the dol­lars spent. The chart below (Figure 3) illus­trates the rel­a­tive cost effec­tive­ness which the police gave to these various measures.

Reliable esti­mates indi­cate that the cost of the death penal­ty to tax­pay­ers is over $2 mil­lion per exe­cu­tion, with the bulk of the costs occur­ring at the tri­al lev­el. [5] That fig­ure is a mea­sure of the extra costs attrib­ut­able sole­ly to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, beyond the costs of a typ­i­cal mur­der case with­out the death penal­ty and the costs of incar­cer­a­tion result­ing from a life sentence.

There are increas­ing demands for the lim­it­ed crime fight­ing resources. Many states and coun­ties are strapped for funds and are fac­ing severe bud­get crises. Hard choic­es have to be made among var­i­ous strate­gies for fight­ing crime. If $2 mil­lion is spent on the death penal­ty, then that same mon­ey is not avail­able for more police offi­cers, or for bul­let proof vests, or for speed­i­er tri­als, or neigh­bor­hood watch pro­grams, or community policing.

“It cur­rent­ly costs three times as much — more than $2 mil­lion per inmate — to car­ry out the death sen­tence than to keep an inmate in prison for 40 years. In oth­er words, it’s cheap­er to lock ​‘em up and throw away the key.… it’s some­thing to con­sid­er.”

–Former Texas Attorney General, Jim Mattox [6]

The aver­age salary for a new police offi­cer is about $42,000 per year, includ­ing ben­e­fits. [7] Thus, $2 mil­lion trans­lates into approx­i­mate­ly 48 addi­tion­al police offi­cers, a far more like­ly and imme­di­ate deter­rent to crime than one remote exe­cu­tion. Similarly, the same $2 mil­lion could buy thou­sands of bul­let-proof vests, or pro­vide improved light­ing in high-crime areas, or could be used as seed mon­ey for neigh­bor­hood watch programs.

One of the prin­ci­pal rea­sons that those in law enforce­ment are not enam­ored of the death penal­ty is that they do not believe it is a deter­rent to crime. Law enforce­ment offi­cers believe that the most effec­tive deter­rent to crime is swift and sure pun­ish­ment. When asked which soci­etal or legal changes would have the great­est impact on reduc­ing vio­lent crime, police chose strength­en­ing fam­i­lies and neigh­bor­hoods, along with swift and sure pun­ish­ment for offend­ers, as the means that would bring about the most significant effects.

Police want­ed more con­trol over illic­it drugs, greater lat­i­tude for judges in crim­i­nal cas­es, greater eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty, and a reduc­tion in the num­ber of guns in cir­cu­la­tion. Expanding the death penal­ty, on the oth­er hand, was not thought to have a big impact on crime reduction.

Over two-thirds of the police chiefs did not believe that the death penal­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the num­ber of homi­cides. About 67% said that it was not one of the most impor­tant law enforce­ment tools. And well over 80% of the respon­dents believe that mur­der­ers do not think about the range of pos­si­ble pun­ish­ments before com­mit­ting homi­cide. The fig­ures below (Figs. 4.1 – 4.3) illus­trate the lack of con­fi­dence which police chiefs place in the death penal­ty as a deterrent.

One of the many prob­lems with the death penal­ty is that it is any­thing but swift and sure. Even under cur­rent pro­pos­als for restrict­ing death penal­ty appeals, the sen­tence would be car­ried out years after it is imposed, on rel­a­tive­ly few of all the con­vict­ed mur­der­ers, and with a sub­stan­tial like­li­hood that the sen­tence will be over­turned before the exe­cu­tion is car­ried out. Sentences of life with­out parole, in con­trast, begin imme­di­ate­ly upon sen­tenc­ing and are rarely over­turned on appeal.

Capital cas­es are a night­mare for the entire jus­tice sys­tem. Police chiefs rec­og­nize that death penal­ty cas­es are par­tic­u­lar­ly bur­den­some in the ear­ly stages. Two-thirds of the police chiefs polled said that death penal­ty cas­es are hard to close and take up a lot of police time.

Jim Mattox, for­mer Attorney General of Texas, who sup­port­ed the death penal­ty dur­ing his term of office and over­saw many of the state’s first exe­cu­tions after the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed, does not believe that mur­der­ers in Texas are deterred by the death penal­ty. Mattox inter­viewed near­ly all the peo­ple exe­cut­ed in Texas between 1976 and 1988 and con­clud­ed that the sen­tence of death nev­er crossed their minds before their crime[15]: ​“It is my own expe­ri­ence that those exe­cut­ed in Texas were not deterred by the exis­tence of the death penal­ty,” he said. ​“I think in most cas­es you’ll find that the mur­der was com­mit­ted under severe drug and alco­hol abuse.” [16]

Lieutenant Gregory Ruff, a police offi­cer in Kansas for 23 years, agrees: ​“I have seen the ugli­ness of mur­der up close and per­son­al. But I have nev­er heard a mur­der sus­pect say they thought about the death penal­ty as a con­se­quence of their actions pri­or to com­mit­ting their crimes.”[17]

“I have seen the ugli­ness of mur­der up close and per­son­al. But I have nev­er heard a mur­der sus­pect say they thought about the death penal­ty as a con­se­quence of their actions pri­or to com­mit­ting their crimes.”

–Police Lieut. Gregory Ruff, Kansas 

Willie Williams, Chief of Police in Los Angeles, echoed the same theme from his years of expe­ri­ence: ​“I am not con­vinced that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, in and of itself, is a deter­rent to crime because most peo­ple do not think about the death penal­ty before they com­mit a vio­lent or cap­i­tal crime.”[18]

Youth and the Culture of Violence

Another rea­son why the death penal­ty fails as a law enforce­ment tool is that one of the most vio­lent seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion is the least like­ly to be deterred by prospec­tive pun­ish­ments. Many who might face the death penal­ty live in a cul­ture of vio­lence. The lead­ing cause of death among young black men, for exam­ple, is mur­der. [19] They are more like­ly to be killed by a rival gang mem­ber or by a drug deal­er whom they dou­ble-crossed than by the state. James Fox, dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, has not­ed the fast growth in vio­lent crime among teenagers: ​“Many of them face death every day of their lives. They don’t think about the pos­si­bil­i­ty — as remote as it is — that they’ll some­day die for a crime. These kids are all armed and in gangs, and they wor­ry about dying next week.” [20] In such an envi­ron­ment, the threat of the death penal­ty adds lit­tle to the danger.

The Hart sur­vey showed that police chiefs are very much aware of the prob­lems among youth today. Strengthening fam­i­lies, neigh­bor­hoods and church­es were among their top pri­or­i­ties through­out the poll. In the open-end­ed ques­tion about changes which would most like­ly reduce vio­lent crime, police men­tioned con­cerns about the needs of young peo­ple and juve­nile offend­ers ahead of a desire for more police or financial resources.

Richard H. Girgenti, the New York State Director of Criminal Justice, not­ed that “[d]emographics have always been the best pre­dic­tor of future crime.”[21] In prepar­ing for chal­lenges in com­bat­ing crime in the next decade, it is sober­ing to note that mur­ders by those between the ages of 14 to 17 grew by 124% between 1986 and 1991, while mur­der among adults 25 and over actu­al­ly declined. [22] Since many teenagers are not even legal­ly eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty, much less deterred by it, and since the num­ber of teenagers in the pop­u­la­tion will be grow­ing tremen­dous­ly in the next 10 years, more cre­ative approach­es to pre­vent­ing vio­lent crime are essential.

Deterrence of Police Killings

Even when it comes to the killing of a police offi­cer, the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent. Texas, by far the lead­ing death penal­ty state, for the past six years has also been the lead­ing state in the num­ber of its police offi­cers killed. By com­par­i­son, last year New York, with no death penal­ty, had about one third as many offi­cers killed as Texas. [23]

A recent study of the deter­rence val­ue of the death penal­ty pub­lished in the Journal of Social Issues sur­veyed a 13-year peri­od of police homi­cides. The researchers con­clud­ed: “[W]e find no con­sis­tent evi­dence that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment influ­enced police killings dur­ing the 1976 – 1989 peri­od.… [P]olice do not appear to have been afford­ed an added mea­sure of pro­tec­tion against homi­cide by cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” [24]

In a nation with over 200 mil­lion firearms, gun con­trol is also a pri­or­i­ty among many law enforce­ment agen­cies. About 45% of police chiefs list­ed the easy avail­abil­i­ty of guns as a major prob­lem in fight­ing crime, though only 38% thought that reduc­ing the num­ber of guns would have a big impact on crime. The International Association of Chiefs of Police, the largest such orga­ni­za­tion in the world, called for strict con­trol of cer­tain weapons: ​“The dead­ly flow of mil­i­tary assault-type auto­mat­ic and semi-auto­mat­ic weapons onto the streets of America and into the hands of vio­lent crim­i­nals means that all too fre­quent­ly the supe­ri­or fire­pow­er belongs to the crim­i­nals, not law enforce-ment.” [25] They called for a com­plete ban: ​“Manufacture and sale of assault weapons to the gen­er­al pub­lic should be pro­hib­it­ed.” [26] Other police orga­ni­za­tions have also sup­port­ed tighter gun controls.[27]

“Many politi­cians say the death penal­ty would help us in New York by deter­ring would-be killers. I believe it would make things worse because it is anoth­er instruc­tion in bru­tal­i­ty.… From 1983 to 1992, states that resumed exe­cu­tions aver­aged three times as many police offi­cers killed than have been killed in New York. How can any­one pre­tend that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment will make us safer?”

–Thomas A. Coughlin III, Former Commissioner, New York State Dept. of Correctional Services [28]

While the pub­lic is deeply con­cerned about vio­lent crime, it is real­ly gun-relat­ed crime that has shown the most dra­mat­ic increas­es. According to the FBI, the vio­lent crime rate has actu­al­ly decreased over the past decade, but crimes with hand­guns have grown dis­turbing­ly. From 1987 to 1992, hand­gun crimes rose 55 per­cent. [29]

A com­par­i­son of hand­gun deaths in the United States as con­trast­ed with oth­er coun­tries demon­strates how seri­ous a prob­lem guns are. In 1992, the United States suf­fered 13,220 mur­ders by hand­guns. By com­par­i­son, there were only 128 such deaths in Canada, 60 in Japan, only 33 in Great Britain, and just 13 in Australia. [30] Some experts in European coun­tries attribute their low­er mur­der rates to stricter gun controls.[31]

“We may have put the caboose on the front — we should have gone after guns first.… Decent folk are just tired of liv­ing under the threat of the gun.”

–James D. Toler, Chief of Police, Kansas City, Missouri[32]

A recent pro­file of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tems in the United States and England pub­lished by the U.S. Department of Justice high­light­ed oth­er inter­est­ing dif­fer­ences between these two coun­tries. Violent crime was sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er in the U.S., with the homi­cide rate in the U.S. being almost sev­en times that in England and Wales. England and Wales employed pro­por­tion­ate­ly more law enforce­ment offi­cers (256 per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion) than did the U.S. (240 offi­cers per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion), and spent more per res­i­dent on their jus­tice sys­tem than did the U.S. [33] None of that spend­ing went toward the death penal­ty, which has been abol­ished in the United Kingdom.

A clear major­i­ty of the police chiefs in the Hart Poll say that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is not an effec­tive law enforce­ment tool, even though they sup­port it philo­soph­i­cal­ly. The chiefs were asked which of three state­ments came clos­est to their own point of view:

• I sup­port the death penal­ty and think it works well.
• Philosophically, I sup­port the death penal­ty, but I don’t think it is an effec­tive law enforce­ment tool in practice.
• I oppose the death penalty.

About a third of the respon­dents approved of the death penal­ty in prac­tice. On the oth­er hand, 58% of the police chiefs, while sup­port­ing the death penal­ty philo­soph­i­cal­ly, did not think it was an effec­tive law enforce­ment tool. When com­bined with the per­cent­age who opposed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment com­plete­ly, this result cor­re­spond­ed well with the two-thirds of police chiefs who dis­agreed that the death penal­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the num­ber of homi­cides and the equal num­ber who say that mur­der­ers do not think about the range of pun­ish­ments before com­mit­ting homi­cides. (See Figure 5).

Police chiefs rec­og­nize that the death penal­ty has been over-used by politi­cians. Ronald Hampton, President of the National Black Police Association in Washington, DC, not­ed: “[The death penal­ty] is a polit­i­cal move, insen­si­tive to the real needs of the peo­ple in this city.” [34] Eighty-five per­cent of the chiefs polled believed that politi­cians sup­port the death penal­ty as a sym­bol­ic way to show they are tough on crime. In line with their belief that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is not an impor­tant law enforce­ment tool, the major­i­ty of police chiefs believed that time spent on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Congress and in state leg­is­la­tures dis­tracts from find­ing real solu­tions to the prob­lems of crime.

Similar to the results of recent opin­ion polls show­ing the pub­lic’s open­ness to death penal­ty alter­na­tives, [35] the Hart poll showed that police chiefs believe in harsh pun­ish­ment for those who com­mit mur­der, though, not nec­es­sar­i­ly, the death penal­ty. When offered the alter­na­tive sen­tence of life impris­on­ment with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, com­bined with manda­to­ry resti­tu­tion to the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly, sup­port for the death penal­ty among police chiefs drops to only 50%. And among the major­i­ty of police chiefs who do not believe the death penal­ty is effec­tive in prac­tice, 52% would pre­fer the alter­na­tive sen­tence over capital punishment.

Many orga­ni­za­tions in the United States are com­mit­ted to law enforce­ment and to find­ing solu­tions to the prob­lems of crime and vio­lence. In grap­pling with these issues, a num­ber of these orga­ni­za­tions have pro­duced state­ments and stud­ies on what can be done to reduce crime. The pro­posed solu­tions range from a fun­da­men­tal restruc­tur­ing of soci­ety to more imme­di­ate inno­va­tions that cit­i­zens can imple­ment in their own neigh­bor­hoods. Rarely is the death penal­ty even men­tioned in their dis­cus­sions. Instead, the solu­tions are changes and pro­grams that affect a broad range of peo­ple and go to the roots of why vio­lent crime has become so prevalent.

Because the root caus­es of vio­lence are so deeply entrenched and so dif­fi­cult to change, the death penal­ty presents a tempt­ing ​“quick fix” to a com­plex prob­lem. Nevertheless, many law enforce­ment groups have tak­en crime head-on and have pro­posed a vari­ety of practical remedies.

In A National Action Plan to Combat Violent Crime, police chiefs from Atlanta, Boston, Louisville, Knoxville, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Washington, DC, along with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, teamed togeth­er in 1993 to address the crime emer­gency and to make rec­om­men­da­tions to the President of the United States. Their crime fight­ing pri­or­i­ties reflect many of the same con­cerns which were voiced by police chiefs all over the coun­try in the Hart Poll:

1. Funds for addi­tion­al police offi­cers, and the imple­men­ta­tion of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, with no cut in oth­er pro­grams that address urban needs and the root caus­es of crime.

2. Omnibus firearm con­trol mea­sures, including:

• Banning the man­u­fac­ture, sale and pos­ses­sion of all semi-auto­mat­ic assault weapons and their component parts.
• Registration of all new­ly pur­chased and transferred firearms
• Expansion of the Brady Law to all firearms sales.
• Liability of gun deal­ers for dam­ages result­ing from illegal sales.

3. Expanded drug con­trol efforts, includ­ing:

• Expansion of treat­ment pro­grams so that ser­vices are avail­able to all in need
• Mandatory min­i­mum sen­tences for all repeat drug sale convictions
• Establishment of addi­tion­al drug courts

4. Restructuring and strength­en­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, includ­ing:

• Emphasis on juve­nile crime; greater pros­e­cu­tion of vio­lent juve­nile offend­ers as adults.
• Expansion of num­ber of pros­e­cu­tors, court ser­vices and personnel
• Expansion of boot camps and oth­er alter­na­tives to prisons

5. Long term crime reduction strategy:

• Reduce unem­ploy­ment
• Community involve­ment in preventing crime
• Focus on young peo­ple: address­ing fam­i­ly vio­lence, jobs, pre­vent­ing school dropouts
• Expansion of vio­lence reduc­tion and con­flict resolution programs

6. Partnerships to pre­vent violent crime:

• More coor­di­na­tion of efforts among may­ors, police chiefs and the federal leaders
• Improved shar­ing of intel­li­gence and technologies
• Involvement of schools, pub­lic health depart­ments, human ser­vice agen­cies, busi­ness­es and neigh­bor­hood orga­ni­za­tions in crime prevention
• Confronting the enter­tain­ment indus­try on the pro­lif­er­a­tion of violence.[36]

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) also issued a series of rec­om­men­da­tions in 1993 in response to the prob­lem of vio­lent crime in America. The IACP con­vened a sum­mit of police exec­u­tives from around the coun­try. Participants includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as police chiefs from major cities. Following the sum­mit, the IACP made a series of rec­om­men­da­tions, including:

1. Declaration of a National Commitment to address vio­lent crime, includ­ing the estab­lish­ment of a Presidential Commission on Crime and Violence.
2. Restrictions on firearms pur­chas­es, lim­it­ing sale and man­u­fac­ture of auto­mat­ic and semi-auto­mat­ic assault weapons.
3. Fighting drugs through edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams, inter­dic­tion and detec­tion pro­grams, and incar­cer­a­tion of vio­lent and non-violent offenders.
4. Combating the influ­ence of gangs by gath­er­ing intel­li­gence, enact­ing new laws direct­ed at ille­gal gang activ­i­ty, enact­ing juve­nile jus­tice reforms, and encour­ag­ing mul­ti-juris­dic­tion­al coop­er­a­tion. [37]

Many of the nation’s largest law enforce­ment orga­ni­za­tions sup­port­ed the crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures in the recent fed­er­al crime bill. When these mea­sures came under attack fol­low­ing the polit­i­cal shifts in the recent elec­tions, the 250,000 mem­ber Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) issued a state­ment strong­ly oppos­ing efforts to the remove the new law’s resources and crime pre­ven­tion pro­grams: ​“Crime prob­lems require law enforce­ment and social reme­dies,” said Richard Boyd, Director of Member Services for the National FOP.[38]

One law enforce­ment group rep­re­sent­ing more than 35,000 indi­vid­ual mem­bers, the National Black Police Association, has a spe­cif­ic pol­i­cy against the death penal­ty. Instead, they empha­size pro­grams that con­trol drugs, hand­gun con­trol, and com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing to com­bat the prob­lems of crime.[39]

Other law enforce­ment orga­ni­za­tions, such as The Police Foundation and The Police Executive Research Forum, are focused pri­mar­i­ly on research. They explore top­ics and pro­duce pub­li­ca­tions on such top­ics as com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, the effects of drugs on crime, and a host of issues of con­cern to those in law enforce­ment. Again, the death penal­ty is not one of their areas of concern.[40]

Police chiefs are not alone in their strong reser­va­tions about the effec­tive­ness of the death penal­ty. Robert Morgenthau, Manhattan’s District Attorney for the past twen­ty years, recent­ly said that the fail­ure of the death penal­ty is actu­al­ly a well kept secret among many pros­e­cu­tors as well: ​“Prosecutors,” he wrote in The New York Times, ​“must reveal the dirty lit­tle secret they too often share only among them­selves: The death penal­ty actu­al­ly hin­ders the fight against crime.” [41]

“The death penal­ty actu­al­ly hin­ders the fight against crime.”

–Robert M. Morgenthau, Manhattan District Attorney 

Increasingly, crime pre­ven­tion is a ques­tion of resources. ​“Executions,” said Morgenthau, ​“waste scarce law-enforce­ment finan­cial and per­son­nel resources.”[42]

Police chiefs and law enforce­ment orga­ni­za­tions are deeply con­cerned about solu­tions to the crime prob­lem fac­ing this coun­try. They come to this cri­sis with years of expe­ri­ence on the front line of doing what­ev­er is in their pow­er to reduce crime. They sup­port those pro­grams that will have a clear impact. Community polic­ing, neigh­bor­hood crime pro­grams, gun con­trol, and a focused approach to cer­tain kinds of crime, such as drug crime and youth crime, are among the approach­es they rec­om­mend most strong­ly. They are equal­ly clear that the prob­lem of vio­lence is not one which can be left to law enforce­ment to solve. Stronger fam­i­lies and neigh­bor­hoods, inter­ven­tion on behalf of youth, and a sound econ­o­my with suf­fi­cient jobs are all nec­es­sary steps to a safer society.

Police chiefs are demon­stra­bly less sup­port­ive of solu­tions like the death penal­ty, which mere­ly sound tough but pro­duce lit­tle return for the large amount of mon­ey invest­ed. Some in law enforce­ment are total­ly opposed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment; oth­ers sup­port it in the­o­ry. But few would give it the high pri­or­i­ty accord­ed it in polit­i­cal cam­paigns and in leg­isla­tive agen­das designed most­ly for sound bites and quick fixes.

Methodology of the Hart Poll

A total of 386 day­time tele­phone inter­views were con­duct­ed with ran­dom­ly des­ig­nat­ed police chiefs and coun­ty sher­iffs through­out the U.S., exclud­ing Alaska and Hawaii between January 17 and 24, 1995. The mar­gin of error is no more than +6 per­cent­age points with a 95% confidence level.

A num­ber of indi­vid­u­als who have been lead­ers in the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty have begun speak­ing out about the over-empha­sis the death penal­ty has received from politi­cians cam­paign­ing for office. These offi­cers and for­mer offi­cers agree that crime is a crit­i­cal prob­lem in America, but they do not see cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a like­ly solu­tion. Regardless of their indi­vid­ual views on the accept­abil­i­ty of the death penal­ty, they do not con­sid­er it to be a strong deter­rent to crime and believe that oth­er, more effec­tive crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures should be given priority.

A state­ment regard­ing law enforce­ment and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, along with the endorsers of that state­ment, is includ­ed below as an indi­ca­tion of the posi­tion of a grow­ing num­ber of mem­bers of the law enforcement community:

Law Enforcement Statement on Capital Punishment

As law enforce­ment offi­cers, our pri­ma­ry con­cern is the pro­tec­tion of the pub­lic from crime. Punishment of offend­ers is a cru­cial ele­ment of this pro­tec­tion, and one which we believe is vital­ly impor­tant in deterring crime.

Recently, atten­tion has focused on one form of pun­ish­ment: the death penal­ty. As indi­vid­u­als, we dif­fer wide­ly in our belief in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Many of us hold that the death penal­ty, if fair­ly and equi­tably admin­is­tered, may have a role in American soci­ety. Others of us have sin­cere reser­va­tions about the use of this ultimate sanction.

As endorsers of this Statement, how­ev­er, we share the belief that oth­er law enforce­ment pri­or­i­ties are far more impor­tant and urgent than cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The death penal­ty absorbs an inor­di­nate por­tion of the finan­cial resources and valu­able time of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Because mil­lions of dol­lars and count­less hours of court time go toward the exe­cu­tion of a sin­gle indi­vid­ual, we believe that oth­er dimen­sions of crime pre­ven­tion are being short-changed.

In many com­mu­ni­ties, the pub­lic would be bet­ter served by mea­sures such as the hir­ing of addi­tion­al police offi­cers, the imple­men­ta­tion of com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, drug inter­dic­tion pro­grams, ear­ly child­hood inter­ven­tion pro­grams, weapons con­trol pro­grams, speed­i­er tri­als, or bet­ter fund­ed pro­ba­tion and parole depart­ments, than by an occa­sion­al death sen­tence on an iso­lat­ed indi­vid­ual, to be car­ried out, if at all, only many years lat­er. The death penal­ty may fas­ci­nate the media and the pub­lic, but it is tru­ly periph­er­al to our efforts to make this society safer.

Too much atten­tion on one extreme of law enforce­ment dis­tracts the pub­lic from the more crit­i­cal task of com­bat­ing dai­ly crime on our city’s streets. State and fed­er­al leg­is­la­tures spend an exor­bi­tant amount of time debat­ing the mer­its of the death penal­ty. The courts are bur­dened with lengthy death penal­ty tri­als and years of appeals. From the per­spec­tive of those of us who see crime up close on a dai­ly basis, there are far high­er pri­or­i­ties that deserve the pub­lic’s atten­tion and support.

We deeply under­stand the pub­lic’s con­cern with the amount of ran­dom, vio­lent crime preva­lent in our soci­ety today. The solu­tions to this prob­lem are not easy ones, and they require a com­mit­ment of mon­ey and resources. The soon­er we order our crime pre­ven­tion pri­or­i­ties toward solu­tions with proven records of effec­tive­ness, the soon­er we will be able to make a seri­ous dent in America’s crime problem.

ENDORSEMENTS

(List in formation)

Catherine M. Abate
Former Commissioner
New York City Dept. of Correction*

Gordon S. Bates
Executive Director, Connecticut Prison Association*

Donald A. Cabana
Former Warden and Commissioner of
Corrections, Mississippi*

Jo Ann D. Diamos
Former U.S. Attorney, Arizona*

Walter J. Dickey
Former Commissioner,
Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections*

Jerry J. Enomoto
Former Director,
California Dept. of Corrections*

James J. Fyfe
Former Lieutenant
New York City Police Dept.*

James M. Gamble
Administrator, Montana Dept. of Corrections *
Robert Gangi
Executive Director, Correctional Association of New York*

Patricia L. Gatling
Former President,
National Black Prosecutors Association*

John F. Gorczyk
Commissioner,
Vermont Dept. of Corrections*

Ronald E. Hampton
Director, National Black Police Association*

Thomas L. Johnson
Former Hennepin County Attorney, Minnesota*

John R. Kramer
Executive Director, Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing*

Jennie Lancaster
Female Command Manager
North Carolina Dept. of Prisons*

William M. Leech, Jr.
Former Attorney General, Tennessee*
Sidney I. Lezak
Former U.S. Attorney, Oregon*

Elaine Little
Director, North Dakota Department of Corrections*

Terre K. Marshall
Deputy Commissioner
Connecticut Dept. of Corrections*

George N. Martin III
Regional Administrator
Former Warden
South Carolina Dept. of Corrections*

E. Michael McCann
District Attorney
Milwaukee, Wisconsin*

Patrick C. McManus
Former Secretary of Corrections, Kansas*

F. Russell Millin
Former U.S. Attorney,
Western District of Missouri*

Kathryn R. Monaco
Former Deputy Sec. for Correction, New Mexico*

Patrick V. Murphy
Former Police Commissioner New York, NY; Detroit, MI
Former Public Safety Director, Washington, DC*

Robert P. Owens
Former Chief of Police
Oxnard, California*

Orville B. Pung
Former Commissioner,
Minnesota Department of Corrections*

W. Jeff Reynolds
Former Commissioner,
Tennessee Dept. of Corrections*

Chase Riveland
Secretary, Washington Dept. of Corrections*

Larry D. Smith
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Corrections, Louisiana*

Raoul Stitt
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney,
Jackson County, Missouri*

Myra Wall
Assistant to the Secretary, Department of Corrections, Washington*

* Law Enforcement affil­i­a­tion list­ed for identification only