Capital Punishment: A Debate
...the world have abolished the death penalty all together or in practice but there are still 95 countries that administer the death penalty regularly (Amnesty International report, 1998). Saudi Arabia is one country that has boasted a deterrent effect from instating the death penalty. Saudi Arabia had curbed its drug usage rate by 26% the year following the instituting of the death sentence for drug use and sales. This also lowered the addiction rate by nearly 60%. This effect has only been documented by statistics from the usage of drugs never from homicide cases (Burt Law on Capital Punishment, 2001). In 1997 alone there were 17 be-headings. Saudi Arabia also uses public executions as a deterrent to people. These two combined do help Saudi Arabia reach the deterrent effect of the Death sentence. China measures out the death penalty for crimes such as treason, rape, murder, acts endangering people or property and fraud (Library of congress, 1998) China’s death penalty law allows for pregnant women and people under aging of 18 to be spared the death penalty. It also allows for a 2-year commute of the death sentence to allow for repentance. If during this two-year period the prisoner can show progress toward correcting their behavior there sentence will be fully commuted to life imprisonment. Mao Tse Tung was accredited with this revolutionary policy. (Library of congress, 1998) China had the highest rate of execution of prisoners in 1996 with 4,173 executions. There were only 5,300 people in the entire world executed the same year. This is equivalent to 78% percent of the world’s executions taking place within one country alone (Amnesty International report, 1998). The crime rate in China stayed around the level of 0.05 per 100,000 people plus consecutively for the four years up to 1988, but the year of 1988 saw a drastic increase in crime and the rate rose to about 0.07%. Still China remains one of the countries with the lowest crime rate in the world. (Chang Lee T. (1998). People’s Republic of China). Australia abolished the death penalty due pressure from abolitionist in favor of a ten year maximum sentence for prisoners. But a study from 1964 until 1973 showed that that the states that executed the most people, the western and the southern, had the lowest homicide rates. The best example of a study that has proven a deterrent effect for the death penalty would have to be Isaac Elrich’s study, which determined that one extra execution per year would save anywhere from 7 to 8 lives per year in the United States. This study was done in 1975 with a follow up study in 1977 that proved one extra execution per year would have prevented the deaths of 20 to 24 individuals. These two studies by Mr. Elrich have been the only ones that have been documented on the deterrent effect of the death penalty within my research. The Justification of abolishment The abolishment of the death penalty seems all but overdue. 100 countries throughout the world have abolished the death penalty either in law or in practice. These countries have found no use for the death penalty in their societies. There are 94 countries throughout the world that still have the death penalty in use and coincidentally these countries also have some of the highest crime rates for homicide in the world. (People’s Republic of China, 1998) In the United States a study was done on the deterrent effect of the use of the death penalty between states with, and sates without the death penalty. This is what was concluded when comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without. The majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states. The average murder rate per 100,000 populations in 1994 among death penalty states was 8.0; the average murder rate among non-death penalty states was only 4.4. A look at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than their neighboring non-death penalty states (Sandro P. (2000). Views on Deterrence and the Death Penalty). Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the UN in 1988, concluded that, “This research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment. Such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. The evidence as a whole still gives no positive support to the deterrent hypothesis.” (People’s Republic of China, 1998) Reviewing a survey of experts from the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Law and Society Association showed that the overwhelming majority did not believe that the death penalty is a proven deterrent to homicide. Over 80% believe the existing research fails to support a deterrence justification for the death penalty. Similarly, over 75% of those polled do not believe that increasing the number of executions, or decreasing the time spent on death row before execution, would produce a general deterrent effect. (Sandro P. (2000). Views on Deterrence and the Death Penalty). From research the use of the death penalty within a country has little deterrent effect on the general population’s opinion of committing a crime. Most of the countries, with a few exceptions such as China and Saudi...