---
title: 'STUDIES: Majority of Leading Criminologists Find Death Penalty Does Not Deter Murder'
description: 'Eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide, according to a new study…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/studies-majority-of-leading-criminologists-find-death-penalty-does-not-deter-murder'
section: news
date: '2009-06-16T20:25:53-04:00'
updated: '2025-03-14T14:26:38-04:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

Eighty-eight percent of the country’s top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide, according to a new study published on June 16 in the Northwestern University School of Law’s *Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology*. The study was authored by Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and graduate student Traci Lacock. Their article, *“Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists,”* is based on a survey of the pre-eminent criminologists in the country. The research did not ask about the respondents' personal views on the death penalty, but only their views of deterrence based on empirical evidence. Eighty-seven percent of the expert criminologists believed that abolition of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates. The authors concluded, **“Our survey indicates that the vast majority of the world’s top criminologists believe that the empirical research has revealed the deterrence hypothesis for a myth … \[T\]he consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment.”** Read the study [here](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/legacy/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf) and the DPIC's press release [here](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/legacy/DeterrencePressRelease.pdf).

(M. Radelet, T. Lacock, ["Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists,”](https://cdn.craft.cloud/c08a8cf8-1de1-4da0-8525-321ca2c16992/assets/legacy/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf) 99 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 489 (2009)). See [**Studies**](/studies-and-additional-resources?did=220&scid=19) and [**Deterrence**](/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty?scid=12&did=167).