Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas recent­ly pub­lished a study on whether exe­cu­tions deter homi­cides using state pan­el date and employ­ing well-known econo­met­ric pro­ce­dures for pan­el analy­sis. The authors found ​“no empir­i­cal sup­port for the argu­ment that the exis­tence or appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty deters prospec­tive offend­ers from com­mit­ting homi­cide.” The study was pub­lished in the jour­nal of Criminology and Public Policy and authored by Tomislav V. Kovandzic, Lynne M. Vieraitis and Denise Paquette Boots, all pro­fes­sors of crim­i­nol­o­gy. The study con­clud­ed, ​“In sum, our find­ing of no deter­rent effect of the DP (death penal­ty) on homi­cide sug­gests the risk of exe­cu­tion does not enhance the lev­el of deter­rence. Therefore, we con­clude that although pol­i­cy mak­ers and the pub­lic may con­tin­ue to sup­port the use of the death penal­ty based on ret­ri­bu­tion, reli­gious grounds, or oth­er jus­ti­fi­ca­tions, defend­ing its use based on deter­rence is incon­sis­tent with our find­ings. At a min­i­mum, pol­i­cy mak­ers should refrain from jus­ti­fy­ing its use by claim­ing that it is a deter­rent to homi­cide and explore less cost­ly, more effec­tive ways of addressing crime.”

The authors stat­ed their study con­tributes to the lit­er­a­ture regard­ing deter­rence as it:

  • reme­dies sta­tis­ti­cal prob­lems found in sev­er­al recent DP stud­ies report­ing robust deterrent effects;
  • con­trols for a larg­er num­ber of poten­tial con­found­ing fac­tors that are the­o­ret­i­cal­ly ground­ed, includ­ing sev­er­al crime pol­i­cy vari­ables (e.g., three-strikes laws and right-to-car­ry con­cealed hand­gun laws) and his­tor­i­cal events (e.g., U.S. impris­on­ment binge and crack-cocaine epi­dem­ic of the 1980s) that have been linked with cross-tem­po­ral changes in homi­cide rates in the post-moratorium era;
  • extends the analy­sis to include addi­tion­al years (beyond 2000) not cov­ered in recent state pan­el DP papers.

(T. Kovandzic, L. Vieraitis and D. Paquette Boots, ​“Does the death penal­ty save lives? New evi­dence from state pan­el data, 1977 to 2006,” 8 Criminology & Public Policy 803 (2009)). See also Deterrence and Studies.

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