Deterrence and Capital Puishment

Deterrence and Capital Puishment

The Deterrence Factor of Capital Punishment
Sharon L. DeNoyer
Axia College of University of Phoenix






    Upon taking an honest and realistic view of the death penalty system, one may conclude, that the sentence of capital punishment is seriously flawed and the deterrence factor, this sentence was intended to create is nonexistent based on statistical data. The statistics and documented evidence will show that, since the reinstatement of the death penalty, the argument that capital punishment creates an effective deterrence, continues to be challenged from both sides. The time has arrived to make definitive choices and changes in what would be effective as the best punishment for the worst crime.
    For many years, the death penalty has been cited to be deterrence for would-be criminals; however this has not shown to be accurate based upon data collection from statistics. The sentence of capital punishment has been proven to have little to no effect on the deterrence of crimes that would qualify for the death penalty. In order to determine correctly the factor of deterrence, a uniformity of data and reports should be conducted in all states that offer a death sentence; however, this is not the case.
    The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics combine data to measure the effects of deterrence. According to Long (2008), “The UCR is criticized sometimes because of the information it does not report. It, for example, includes only offenses that are known to the police and as many as two out of three crimes are not reported to the police.” UCR statistics under estimate the crime rate because of underreporting; this could possibly result in statistics proving to be less than accurate in the reports of deterrence.
        According to Richard Berk, (2005) there are many statistical problems with the data analyses reported. This article addresses the problem of “influence,”...