Reason +1; NM abolishes the death penalty.Follow

I wouldn't suggest that it's the reverse (that lack of capital punishment scares away murderers) but it does imply that the existance of capital punishment isn't a deterrent to crime. And I've yet to see statistics suggesting otherwise.

As I said upthread, it is provably more expensive than life imprisonment, it doesn't show any deterrent effect on crime rates and it has a chance of executing innocent people. Any two of those should make it a non-starter. All three and it's just a joke.

That's not the situation. The situation is that cars without steering columns are statistically as safe or slightly safer than cars with steering columns, therefore steering columns must not improve the safety of a car.

Oh you most definitely can say it isn't a deterrent to crime. It isn't expressly proven because DP isn't the only factor that varies from state to state. The situation could be that the DP does indeed deter crime, but every state without the DP happens to employ some other method that compensates for lack of the DP. Incredibly unlikely, but possible.

The current situation is that there is zero evidence supporting deterrence with the DP, and evidence supporting but not absolute proof of the DP being ineffective at deterring.

If you accept the numbers as Jophiel listed then there are two logical conclusions. Either
A) States without capital punishment have lower murder rates than those with capital punishment, therefore capital punishment is not effective at deterring murder.
B) States without capital punishment have lower murder rates than those with capital punishment, therefore capital punishment is effective at deterring murder, but EVERY non-DP state and ONLY non-DP state happens to employ an additional policy which compensates for the lack of DP.

If states had policies randomly assigned to them then option A would be 98% likely and option B would be 2% likely. You are currently betting on 2%.

Edited, Mar 24th 2009 12:15am by Allegory

That was already addressed when I said a state employs some other method that somehow reduces crime.

I can give you an example of how this almost certainly does not matter. Lets assume that the death penalty and population density are the only two factors potentially affecting crime. These are also binary factors. There are two states with a low crime rate, and they do not employ the DP (state A and B). There are two states with a high crime rate and they employ the DP (state c and D). This matches up to real world stats. The population density of these state is random. The death penalty is effective, but that density (or lack of) decreases crime rate and thus counter effects it.

Here are all possible situations.


State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense


State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense


State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense


State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, No Dense

State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, No Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense

State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, No Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense

State A: No DP, No Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense


State A: No DP, Yes Dense
State B: No DP, Yes Dense
State C: Yes DP, Yes Dense
State D: Yes DP, Yes Dense


I listed them all so you could see how improbable it was. Red is the only possible situation where the argument could be true. In all other situations it is false. This is only with 4 states. The probability decreases, going to 2%, as the number of states increases. When you are only comparing two states it seems like population density could matter, but when you compare several states the likelihood increases of finding a state with low/high density without the DP where crime is lower than in a DP state with the opposite kind of density, thus disproving it DP as not being a factor.

Edited, Mar 24th 2009 12:35am by Allegory

I was gonna do a snarky post about how the US was in good company with the likes of Saudi Arabia and China with its continuing use of killing prisoners, but instead I'll point out the contradictions in spin of news coverage of the use of the death penalty in the US.


Deutsche Well said


Fox Said



To be fair (and balanced) the Fox article goes on to say