Studies show no link between the presence or absence of the death penalty and murder rates.
Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? Exploring murder rates, killings of police officers, and the death penalty
View DPIC's information about state-by-state murder rates. State and regional murder statistics show no correlation between use of the death penalty and reduced crime.
Deterrence is probably the most commonly expressed rationale for the death penalty. The essence of the theory is that the threat of being executed in the future will be sufficient to cause a significant number of people to refrain from committing a heinous crime they had otherwise planned. Deterrence is not principally concerned with the prevention of further killing by an already convicted death-penalty defendant. That falls under the topic of incapacitation.
Deterrence should not be considered in a vacuum. The critical question is not whether potential criminals will be dissuaded from killing because they would face the death penalty rather than no punishment at all. Other punishments such as life without parole might provide equal deterrence at far less costs and without the attendant risk of executing an innocent person. Whether the death penalty is a proven method of lowering the murder rate has been subjected to many studies over many decades.
It is not enough to compare jurisdictions with the death penalty to those without unless the study controls for the many other variables that could affect the murder rate. For example, lower unemployment rates correlate with lower crime rates. More police involvement in the local community seems to reduce crime. The death penalty affects only a tiny percentage of even those who commit murder. Its effect is very difficult to pinpoint, and the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that past studies have neither proven nor disproven a deterrent effect.
If the death penalty is not a proven deterrent to murder, is it worth the excessive costs, risks of error, uncertainty of completion, and other problems that are inherent to its practice? On the political level, the deterrent value of the death penalty is often taken for granted without a careful examination of the research or a consideration of less risky alternatives. This is especially relevant given that death penalty use has been declining dramatically. Most states are not carrying out any executions in a given year.
DPIC has collected many of the deterrent studies that have been conducted in the modern era and has summarized their results. It also provides some of the raw data on which such studies rely, such as the murder rate for each state in each year in the modern era, along with the number of executions and death sentences for each state in the same periods.
In a July podcast episode from Deeper Dive with Dara Kam, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (pictured) spoke about his beliefs on capital punishment and his regrets about not having enough time to reform Florida’s death penalty process. Gov. Bush, who oversaw 21 executions during his eight years in office, said that “ it’s one of those things that would probably be unpopular to do, but figuring out a way to reform the system given the existing laws that we have now, I think would be…
Stephen Oliphant’s recent study on the death penalty’s effect on homicide rates published in Criminology & Public Policy found “ no evidence of a deterrent effect attributable to death penalty statutes.” Oliphant first discusses deterrence theory, which “ posits that punishment, or the threat of punishment, discourages individuals from committing crime,” and its role in capital punishment discourse, where proponents of the death penalty have argued that the threat of the death…
Despite the absence of evidence that the death penalty protects police or promotes public safety, lawmakers in several states that have abolished capital punishment have introduced bills to reinstate capital punishment for the murders of police…
Calling capital punishment in the U.S. “ broken,” 56 elected prosecutors from across the country have issued a joint statement urging systemic changes to end the death penalty nationwide. As an initial step, the prosecutors pledged to not seek the death penalty “ against people with intellectual disabilities, post-traumatic stress disorder, histories of traumatic brain injury, or other intellectual or cognitive challenges that diminish their ability to fully understand and regulate their own…
Citing its “ Christian values” and the unavailability of any humane means to carry out executions, Papua New Guinea has abolished capital…
A report released in 2012 by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed.
Discussions With DPIC
Law enforcement officials who came together in Washington, D.C., in 2010 for an international dialogue on the death penalty argue that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that societies are better off without it.
