The dissuasive value of death penalty have already been discussed a lot, but the discussion that immediately come to mind is the eloquent speech given by the Fr

The dissuasive value of death penalty have already been discussed a lot, but the discussion that immediately come to mind is the eloquent speech given by the French ministrer of justice (Robert Badinter) when they abolished death penalty in 1981 (if you speak French, have a listen; it's one of the great speeches). The arguments were: - There's no correlation between death penalty abolition and a reduction or increase in criminality curve - The most death penalty-able crimes are crimes of passion or folly. People are not rational actors in these case, and have a death penalty - "Cold-blooded" criminal (trafficker, pimp, maffiosi and such) would never put themselves in a situation where they could get death penalty - "Criminal passion are no less stopped by the fear of death than other more noble passion. If the fear of death would dissuade people to act, then we would have neither great soldiers nor great sportmen. We admire them, but they do not hesitate in face of death. Nor will other people, taken by other passions. It's only for death penalty that we think that death will prevent people in their most extreme passions. This is not true."