2/29/2008

Proof that the death penalty works ?

The argument goes that America is an example of how the death penalty works. We are constantly told by pro death penalty group that the Death penalty acts as a deterrent and that if we had the same level of punishment it would have the same effect over here too.

Yet prison numbers are at an all time high and America, with more than 1% of all Americans now being in jail. If the death penalty works as a deterrent, why are so many in jail ? And why are the figures higher in states that have the death penalty ?

With some US states actually moving to abolish the death penalty, particularly after recent studies suggest that one in three people legally killed by US states were actually innocent, I guess it proves that the death penalty is no deterrent at all.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The number of people in prison doesn't imply anything about a decrease or increase of the US crime rate. It may ionly imply that the conviction rate increased... Even so, the violent crime rate has FALLEN precipitously since 1993. During that time, the US execution rate ROSE.

Please explain this phenomenon.

Anonymous said...

It's been statistically proven, that 100% of murderers that are put to death never murder again.

In my country (South Africa), many murderers escape and murder before being put in prison. Many lives would have been saved if these people met the same fate, that they caused their victims to meet.

Nich Starling said...

It's also a known fact that states that execute have higher murder rates than those that don't, be these countries or US states.

It is also a known fact that a criminal's liklihood of committing a murder is related to the chances of the getting caught, not the sentence they will receive. If you think you will get away with it you don't care about the penalty.

Finally, it is a proven fact that countries make mistakes because juries make mistakes. Killing an innocent person is never acceptable. Imagine if it were a member of your family.

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