(By Michael P. Tremoglie author of the police novel A Sense of Duty available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. A former Philadelphia Police Officer Tremoglie has been a columnist of the The Philadelphia Bulletin, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him [email protected])
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June 11, 2007 was the sixth anniversary of the execution of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. Despite the claims of capital punishment opponents that executions do not deter murders, McVeigh has not killed anyone else since his execution.
Those who want to abolish capital punishment have propagated the myth that capital punishment does not deter murder. Some have claimed that every reasonable criminologist who studied the issue determined that capital punishment is not a deterrent. Presumably, their definition of a reasonable criminologist is one who believes that capital punishment is not a deterrent.
The facts, however, are quite different. Many criminologists – and other social scientists – have concluded that capital punishment is a deterrent (a salient fact that I routinely used to point out to my graduate criminology professors).
Indeed, a 2003 study, published in the Journal of Law and Economics – and reviewed in 2006 – determined that capital punishment did deter homicides. The study investigated:
. . . the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder.
This is not the only academic study that concluded capital punishment’s deterrent effect:
A 2003 study by Emory University Economics Department Chairman Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Emory Professors Paul Rubin and Joanna Shepherd stated that “our results suggest that capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect.â€
Another 2003 study, by Clemson University’s Joanna Shepherd, established that each execution deters an average of five murders and that postponing executions reduced the deterrent effect.
A 2002 Senate report declared there is a great deal of proof that capital punishment is a deterrent. The report affirms, “. . . there is overwhelming evidence that capital punishment saves a substantial number of innocent lives, deterring probably thousands of murders in the United States every year.â€
A November 2001 paper, presented to the American Society of Criminology said, “There has been a great deal of research conducted by criminologists on the effectiveness of the death penalty in preventing future homicides . . . While many of these studies find no deterrent effect there are other well designed research reports that reach the opposite conclusion.â€
There have been studies validating the efficacy of capital punishment for more than thirty years, yet, if all you knew was what the mainstream media reported you would think science had proven otherwise.
The good news, though, is that despite the well-funded, anti-capital punishment misinformation campaign, helped by a liberal media, the public still favors capital punishment:
A May 2006 Gallup poll indicated that Americans favor the death penalty; 65 percent favored it, while 28 percent opposed it.
A December 2005 poll by the Pew Research Center revealed 62% of Americans favored capital punishment.
A 2000 Zogby poll revealed that 78% of Italian-Americans, 75% of Asian-Americans, 73% of Hispanic-Americans, 71% of Arab-Americans and 64% of African-Americans favor capital punishment.
This last fact is significant because capital punishment abolitionists have tried to portray the death penalty as racist. This is a tansparent attempt to discredit those who favor capital punishment. Yet, this too is not true.
A 1991 Rand Corporation study by Stephen Klein found that white murderers received the death penalty slightly more often than non-white murderers. It also examined the sentencing disparity for the race of the victim. Rand concluded that although murderers of whites did receive the death penalty more than murderers of blacks, when controlled for variables such as severity and number of crimes committed, there was no disparity.
Patrick A. Lanagan, PhD., a Department of Justice statistician, studied the phenomena and stated that there was no evidence that blacks and whites were treated differently.
Here are some facts about convicted murderers that provide a perspective about capital punishment that you will not get from the New York Times and other liberal media. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, as of Dec. 31, 2004, 8 percent of those sentenced to be executed had at least one previous homicide conviction; 3.4 percent (101 murderers) were already in prison when they murdered someone.
Those who say capital punishment is not a deterrent, or who say life imprisonment is an effective substitute, should examine these facts. They would also do well to heed the words of Edmund Burke, who once said, "The men who today snatch the worst criminals from justice will murder the most innocent persons tomorrow."
__________________________________________________ _____________
June 11, 2007 was the sixth anniversary of the execution of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. Despite the claims of capital punishment opponents that executions do not deter murders, McVeigh has not killed anyone else since his execution.
Those who want to abolish capital punishment have propagated the myth that capital punishment does not deter murder. Some have claimed that every reasonable criminologist who studied the issue determined that capital punishment is not a deterrent. Presumably, their definition of a reasonable criminologist is one who believes that capital punishment is not a deterrent.
The facts, however, are quite different. Many criminologists – and other social scientists – have concluded that capital punishment is a deterrent (a salient fact that I routinely used to point out to my graduate criminology professors).
Indeed, a 2003 study, published in the Journal of Law and Economics – and reviewed in 2006 – determined that capital punishment did deter homicides. The study investigated:
. . . the impact of the execution rate, commutation and removal rates, homicide arrest rate, sentencing rate, imprisonment rate, and prison death rate on the rate of homicide. The results show that each additional execution decreases homicides by about five, and each additional commutation increases homicides by the same amount, while an additional removal from death row generates one additional murder.
This is not the only academic study that concluded capital punishment’s deterrent effect:
A 2003 study by Emory University Economics Department Chairman Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Emory Professors Paul Rubin and Joanna Shepherd stated that “our results suggest that capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect.â€
Another 2003 study, by Clemson University’s Joanna Shepherd, established that each execution deters an average of five murders and that postponing executions reduced the deterrent effect.
A 2002 Senate report declared there is a great deal of proof that capital punishment is a deterrent. The report affirms, “. . . there is overwhelming evidence that capital punishment saves a substantial number of innocent lives, deterring probably thousands of murders in the United States every year.â€
A November 2001 paper, presented to the American Society of Criminology said, “There has been a great deal of research conducted by criminologists on the effectiveness of the death penalty in preventing future homicides . . . While many of these studies find no deterrent effect there are other well designed research reports that reach the opposite conclusion.â€
There have been studies validating the efficacy of capital punishment for more than thirty years, yet, if all you knew was what the mainstream media reported you would think science had proven otherwise.
The good news, though, is that despite the well-funded, anti-capital punishment misinformation campaign, helped by a liberal media, the public still favors capital punishment:
A May 2006 Gallup poll indicated that Americans favor the death penalty; 65 percent favored it, while 28 percent opposed it.
A December 2005 poll by the Pew Research Center revealed 62% of Americans favored capital punishment.
A 2000 Zogby poll revealed that 78% of Italian-Americans, 75% of Asian-Americans, 73% of Hispanic-Americans, 71% of Arab-Americans and 64% of African-Americans favor capital punishment.
This last fact is significant because capital punishment abolitionists have tried to portray the death penalty as racist. This is a tansparent attempt to discredit those who favor capital punishment. Yet, this too is not true.
A 1991 Rand Corporation study by Stephen Klein found that white murderers received the death penalty slightly more often than non-white murderers. It also examined the sentencing disparity for the race of the victim. Rand concluded that although murderers of whites did receive the death penalty more than murderers of blacks, when controlled for variables such as severity and number of crimes committed, there was no disparity.
Patrick A. Lanagan, PhD., a Department of Justice statistician, studied the phenomena and stated that there was no evidence that blacks and whites were treated differently.
Here are some facts about convicted murderers that provide a perspective about capital punishment that you will not get from the New York Times and other liberal media. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, as of Dec. 31, 2004, 8 percent of those sentenced to be executed had at least one previous homicide conviction; 3.4 percent (101 murderers) were already in prison when they murdered someone.
Those who say capital punishment is not a deterrent, or who say life imprisonment is an effective substitute, should examine these facts. They would also do well to heed the words of Edmund Burke, who once said, "The men who today snatch the worst criminals from justice will murder the most innocent persons tomorrow."
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