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As a matter of interest, I wrote the most up-voted answer on Skeptics.SE, in response to the question of whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent, he

by bmh_ca 10y ago

As a matter of interest, I wrote the most up-voted answer on Skeptics.SE, in response to the question of whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent, here: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/6164/1792 http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/6164/1792 tl;dr: there's no evidence to suggest it is effective, and much evidence to the contrary.

dvh 10y ago
I have never heard anyone arguing about whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent. It's about removing murderers from humankind as soon and as cheap as possible.
- GnarfGnarf 10y ago
  Exactly. Capital punishment is a deterrent in the sense that once you execute the murderer, (s)he will never kill again. How's that for prevention?
  - AimHere 10y ago
    Not great. Once you've done that, you're giving criminals an excellent motive for committing more murders in order to not get caught. There's an actual saying referencing it: 'Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb'. And executing people who commit crimes for political or religious motives leads to notions of martyrdom and often encourages people of a like-mind to join their struggles. Life imprisonment does much the same prevention job as the death penalty with much less baggage in terms of the ethics of killing people, or of the consequences of convicting innocent people, too.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Quite bad. For one, it gives people the message that murder, in some cases, is justified -- heck, even the state does it. Second, after someone has done enough violent things to warrant capital punishment, every subsequent thing they do is free of any other punishment. Killed a cop during some robbery? Might as well try to shoot the whole lot down and escape, since I'm already certain to be put to death if caught. Third, it also kills innocent people the same way actual murderers do. People that DNA or other evidence later exonerated.
    - BobCat 10y ago
      > it gives people the message that murder, in some cases, is justified -- heck, even the state does it Murder is not killing. Murder is unlawfully killing.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    The vast majority of murderers never kill again if released either. Murder is one of the crimes with the lowest chance of reoffending [1], as most murders are crimes of passion occurring under extreme circumstances that rarely reoccur. The cold, calculating murderer that is happy to plan another murder is an extreme outlier. As such capital punishment has exceedingly little effect on murder rates - most murderers don't believe they'll ever kill until they do, and are not in a state of mind to consider outcomes when they do. And once they have, the vast majority will never go on to kill again. [1] EDIT: As in, extremely few will commit another murder.
- relistan 10y ago
  All punishment is intended as a deterrent, including capital punishment. https://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/summer06/capitalpunish https://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/repor... But, even if you don't agree, it's also in no way the cheapest or most effective way to handle this punishment. Google it. Here's one page for you: http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-cost http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-d...
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >All punishment is intended as a deterrent, including capital punishment. That's what they say there. Doesn't mean that's what the society that sustains the laws believes...
  - mixedCase 10y ago
    The cost of death penalty in the US is very different to the one in Singapore, to bring up a comparison.
laichzeit0 10y ago
I suppose the assumption you make is that the death penalty is meant as a deterrent. My world-view is that the death penalty is a form of punishment for serious crime. It is not meant as a deterrent, not meant as some "lesson" for others. And I, personally, see no problem with it as a form of penalty to be payed by some. (I also reject Blackstone's formulation)
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  Regardless of whether it's a deterrent, there have been people sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK who were later shown not to have committed the murders they were sentenced for. Those people would have been hanged if we'd kept the death penalty. I presume there are also miscarriages of justice in the USA.
- rimantas 10y ago
  If you see no problem, how do you propose to revive those killed because trial went wrong and an innocent man was sentenced?
  - gedy 10y ago
    The vast majority of trials are absolutely fair and this "what if?" argument is thrown up too often as an emotional argument, even in the cases of truly cruel and heinous crimes. I've been on a murder jury, and if anything the system is biased towards not convicting (as it should be).
    - denzil_correa 10y ago
      > this "what if?" argument is thrown up too often as an emotional argument The reason it is thrown up is because it does happen.
    - Noseshine 10y ago
      > The vast majority of trials You skirt the question. It said "those killed because trial went wrong and an innocent man was sentenced". So it asked exactly about those that you exclude.
gedy 10y ago
But it's a 100% deterrent for that one murderer.
- ska 10y ago
  And 100% irreversible for any mistakes - at this point there have unavoidably been many.
- vidarh 10y ago
  But that one murderer is extremely unlikely to kill again even if released.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  No, not really. It didn't prevent the murder. It just is an absolute way of knowing they will never murder again. The thing is that many don't ever re-murder. With the proper systems in place, the majority of folks don't even wind up back in prison. IE, Norway's recidivism rate is around 20-25% :: The US hosts something like 52% at least with more than that being re-arrested for things. Heck, the death penalty hasn't even been shown to prevent other folks from murdering folks. Neither have absurdly long prison sentences, including life in prison.
helthanatos 10y ago
You could argue that using it as a deterant doesn't work. But what if we did something like Shusterman's Unwind for criminals that have killed others? There are about 120,000 people needing lifesaving organ transplant and only about 12,000 donors (https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov) Lethal injection used to cost about 85$ per person(apparently that cost has seen exponential growth). Although, taking organs from people forcefully or from a prisoner in general may be considered wrong (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42667886/ns/health-health_care/t/killers-quest-allow-organ-donation-after-execution/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42667886/ns/health-health_care/t/k...). It can be reasoned that since they unjustly took the life of someone else that they should surrender their body to the state to make up their unfortunate deeds. Simply put: why let good people die when bad people can save them? Clearly there are moral delimas, as well as legal ones, that can be argued either direction. Possibly the biggest problem would be the people the organs saved having issues with having a murderer's organs save their lives. After all, who would really want a criminal's body parts? Would the only people doing this to and making feel better be vigilantes? Perhaps it could be looked at from an economical point then: is it more cost effective to set criminals free or to extinguish their life? How many more people would murders hurt if they were let free from prison? Does prison actually reform murderers?
- vidarh 10y ago
  This creates a strong incentive to unfairly convict by lowering the perceived damage of wrongly convicting someone as someone else who may potentially be seemd as more likely to be good may be saved.
  - helthanatos 10y ago
    I would argue that it wouldn't do much to conviction because the organs used from the current people would satisfy a lot of the need. Yes, it may increase unfair convictions, but I don't think it would be a strong enough incentive.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      28 people were executed in the US in 2015. Thousands of organs are transplanted every year. The only way death penalty would make a dent would be to dramatically increase it. But it wouldn't need to dramatically increase it to cause a massive percentage-wise increase in innocent people convicted.

by bmh_ca 10y ago

dvh 10y ago

I have never heard anyone arguing about whether the death penalty is an effective deterrent. It's about removing murderers from humankind as soon and as cheap as possible.

GnarfGnarf 10y ago
Exactly. Capital punishment is a deterrent in the sense that once you execute the murderer, (s)he will never kill again. How's that for prevention?
- AimHere 10y ago
  Not great. Once you've done that, you're giving criminals an excellent motive for committing more murders in order to not get caught. There's an actual saying referencing it: 'Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb'. And executing people who commit crimes for political or religious motives leads to notions of martyrdom and often encourages people of a like-mind to join their struggles. Life imprisonment does much the same prevention job as the death penalty with much less baggage in terms of the ethics of killing people, or of the consequences of convicting innocent people, too.
- coldtea 10y ago
  Quite bad. For one, it gives people the message that murder, in some cases, is justified -- heck, even the state does it. Second, after someone has done enough violent things to warrant capital punishment, every subsequent thing they do is free of any other punishment. Killed a cop during some robbery? Might as well try to shoot the whole lot down and escape, since I'm already certain to be put to death if caught. Third, it also kills innocent people the same way actual murderers do. People that DNA or other evidence later exonerated.
  - BobCat 10y ago
    > it gives people the message that murder, in some cases, is justified -- heck, even the state does it Murder is not killing. Murder is unlawfully killing.
- vidarh 10y ago
  The vast majority of murderers never kill again if released either. Murder is one of the crimes with the lowest chance of reoffending [1], as most murders are crimes of passion occurring under extreme circumstances that rarely reoccur. The cold, calculating murderer that is happy to plan another murder is an extreme outlier. As such capital punishment has exceedingly little effect on murder rates - most murderers don't believe they'll ever kill until they do, and are not in a state of mind to consider outcomes when they do. And once they have, the vast majority will never go on to kill again. [1] EDIT: As in, extremely few will commit another murder.
relistan 10y ago
All punishment is intended as a deterrent, including capital punishment. https://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/summer06/capitalpunish https://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/repor... But, even if you don't agree, it's also in no way the cheapest or most effective way to handle this punishment. Google it. Here's one page for you: http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-cost http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-d...
- coldtea 10y ago
  >All punishment is intended as a deterrent, including capital punishment. That's what they say there. Doesn't mean that's what the society that sustains the laws believes...
- mixedCase 10y ago
  The cost of death penalty in the US is very different to the one in Singapore, to bring up a comparison.

laichzeit0 10y ago

I suppose the assumption you make is that the death penalty is meant as a deterrent. My world-view is that the death penalty is a form of punishment for serious crime. It is not meant as a deterrent, not meant as some "lesson" for others. And I, personally, see no problem with it as a form of penalty to be payed by some. (I also reject Blackstone's formulation)

DonaldFisk 10y ago
Regardless of whether it's a deterrent, there have been people sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK who were later shown not to have committed the murders they were sentenced for. Those people would have been hanged if we'd kept the death penalty. I presume there are also miscarriages of justice in the USA.
rimantas 10y ago
If you see no problem, how do you propose to revive those killed because trial went wrong and an innocent man was sentenced?
- gedy 10y ago
  The vast majority of trials are absolutely fair and this "what if?" argument is thrown up too often as an emotional argument, even in the cases of truly cruel and heinous crimes. I've been on a murder jury, and if anything the system is biased towards not convicting (as it should be).
  - denzil_correa 10y ago
    > this "what if?" argument is thrown up too often as an emotional argument The reason it is thrown up is because it does happen.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    > The vast majority of trials You skirt the question. It said "those killed because trial went wrong and an innocent man was sentenced". So it asked exactly about those that you exclude.

gedy 10y ago

But it's a 100% deterrent for that one murderer.

ska 10y ago
And 100% irreversible for any mistakes - at this point there have unavoidably been many.
vidarh 10y ago
But that one murderer is extremely unlikely to kill again even if released.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
No, not really. It didn't prevent the murder. It just is an absolute way of knowing they will never murder again. The thing is that many don't ever re-murder. With the proper systems in place, the majority of folks don't even wind up back in prison. IE, Norway's recidivism rate is around 20-25% :: The US hosts something like 52% at least with more than that being re-arrested for things. Heck, the death penalty hasn't even been shown to prevent other folks from murdering folks. Neither have absurdly long prison sentences, including life in prison.

helthanatos 10y ago

You could argue that using it as a deterant doesn't work. But what if we did something like Shusterman's Unwind for criminals that have killed others? There are about 120,000 people needing lifesaving organ transplant and only about 12,000 donors (https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov) Lethal injection used to cost about 85$ per person(apparently that cost has seen exponential growth). Although, taking organs from people forcefully or from a prisoner in general may be considered wrong (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42667886/ns/health-health_care/t/killers-quest-allow-organ-donation-after-execution/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42667886/ns/health-health_care/t/k...). It can be reasoned that since they unjustly took the life of someone else that they should surrender their body to the state to make up their unfortunate deeds. Simply put: why let good people die when bad people can save them? Clearly there are moral delimas, as well as legal ones, that can be argued either direction. Possibly the biggest problem would be the people the organs saved having issues with having a murderer's organs save their lives. After all, who would really want a criminal's body parts? Would the only people doing this to and making feel better be vigilantes? Perhaps it could be looked at from an economical point then: is it more cost effective to set criminals free or to extinguish their life? How many more people would murders hurt if they were let free from prison? Does prison actually reform murderers?

vidarh 10y ago
This creates a strong incentive to unfairly convict by lowering the perceived damage of wrongly convicting someone as someone else who may potentially be seemd as more likely to be good may be saved.
- helthanatos 10y ago
  I would argue that it wouldn't do much to conviction because the organs used from the current people would satisfy a lot of the need. Yes, it may increase unfair convictions, but I don't think it would be a strong enough incentive.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    28 people were executed in the US in 2015. Thousands of organs are transplanted every year. The only way death penalty would make a dent would be to dramatically increase it. But it wouldn't need to dramatically increase it to cause a massive percentage-wise increase in innocent people convicted.