Summaries of Additional Deterrence Studies

Law Enforcement

Deterrence & Murder of Police Officers - According to sta­tis­tics from the lat­est FBI Uniform Crime Report, regions of the coun­try that use the death penal­ty the least are the safest for police offi­cers. Police are most in dan­ger in the south, which accounts for 80% of all exe­cu­tions (90% in 2000). From 1989 – 1998, 292 law enforce­ment offi­cers were felo­nious­ly killed in the south, 125 in the west, 121 in the mid­west, and 80 in the north­east, the region with the fewest exe­cu­tion — less than 1%. The three lead­ing states where law enforce­ment offi­cers were felo­nious­ly killed in 1998 were California, the state with the high­est death row pop­u­la­tion (7); Texas, the state with the most exe­cu­tions since 1976 (5); and Florida, the state that is third high­est in exe­cu­tions and in death row pop­u­la­tion (5). (FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 1998) 

A 1994 study of the deter­rence val­ue of the death penal­ty focused on whether the death penal­ty deterred the mur­der of police offi­cers. The researchers sur­veyed a thir­teen year peri­od of police homi­cides. The study con­clud­ed ” we 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.” (W. Bailey and R. Peterson, Murder, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence: A Review of the Evidence and an Examination of Police Killings, 50 Journal of Social Issues 53, 71 1994)

Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed 1989 – 1998

On the Front Line: Law Enforcement Views on the Death Penalty A 1995 nation­al sur­vey of police chiefs from around the coun­try dis­cred­its the repeat­ed asser­tion that the death penal­ty is an impor­tant law enforcement tool.

Criminologists’ Views

A sur­vey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law
and Society Association showed that the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty did not believe that the death penal­ty is a proven deter­rent to homi­cide. Over 80% believe the exist­ing research fails to sup­port a deter­rence jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the death penal­ty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increas­ing the num­ber of exe­cu­tions, or decreas­ing the time spent on death row before exe­cu­tion, would pro­duce a gen­er­al deter­rent effect. (M. Radelet and R. Akers, Deterrence and the Death
Penalty: The Views of the Experts, 1995)

Brutalization

Research report­ed in Homicide Studies, Vol. 1, No.2, May 1997, indi­cates that exe­cu­tions may actu­al­ly increase the num­ber of mur­ders, rather than deter mur­ders. Prof. Ernie Thomson at Arizona State University report­ed a bru­tal­iz­ing effect from an exe­cu­tion in Arizona, con­sis­tent with the results of a sim­i­lar study in Oklahoma.

Deaths of Children in the US: New Report — Apparently, the US’s use of the death penal­ty is not improv­ing its stand­ing in the world com­mu­ni­ty when it comes to the deaths of chil­dren. In a February 7, 1997 Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (part of U.S Dept. of Health and Human Services), from 1950 – 1993 child homi­cide rates in the U. S. tripled. CDC com­pared the U.S. with 25 oth­er indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and found that ​“the United States has the high­est rates of child­hood homi­cide, sui­cide, and firearm-relat­ed death among indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries.” Almost all of these oth­er indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries have stopped using the death penal­ty The report found that: 

• The over­all firearm-relat­ed death rate among U.S. chil­dren less than 15 years of age was 12 times high­er than among chil­dren in the oth­er 25 countries combined. 
  
• The firearm-relat­ed homi­cide rate in the U.S. was near­ly 16 times high­er than in all of the oth­er countries combined. 
  
• The firearm-relat­ed sui­cide rate was near­ly 11 times higher. 

The report not­ed that pre­vi­ous stud­ies have shown an asso­ci­a­tion between rates of vio­lent child­hood death and low fund­ing for social pro­grams, eco­nom­ic stress relat­ed to par­tic­i­pa­tion of women in the labor force, divorce, eth­nic-lin­guis­tic het­ero­gene­ity, and social accept­abil­i­ty of vio­lence. (Rates of Homicide, Suicide, and Firearm-Related Death Among Children — 26 Industrialized Countries, 46 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 101 (Feb 7, 1997)) 

In com­par­ing the rate of death by hand­guns in eight indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries, the United States stands out with a rate of death by hand­guns that is much high­er than the rate of oth­er coun­tries. The United States is also the only coun­try of the eight to retain use of the death penal­ty. In most for­eign coun­tries, gun con­trol laws are more restric­tive and gun own­ers are assigned more respon­si­bil­i­ty. (Washington Post, 4/​4/​98)