Capital Punishment Deterrence Hypothesis: Some Term Paper

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Assumptions were made regarding the individual state-level view about the punishment -- it is far more utilitarian to support capital punishment in states that have rising crime rates and proportionally higher rates of murder. Further, because the racial aspect of the death penalty is so controversial, and for some the main focus of the debate, the study measured racial composition in the data as the percentage of nonwhites to the overall state population. Factors regarding levels of urbanization and religion were also factored into the results. Despite these rather rigorous variable sets being included, any sociologist will confirm that cultural factors like urbanization, religiosity, and even political leanings have undergone a massive shift since the 1940s and 1950s; in most cases liberalizing the population factors that approve of the death penalty.

Certainly, this study is both robust and detailed in the sorting and statistical applications run on the data. The authors are quite thorough in their estimation of individual variables on the data, and the use of appropriateness of certain "weighted factors" on the outcome. Of special significance was the way the study accounted for simultaneity. "The market model of crime suggests, however, that these measures are simultaneously determined along with the murder rate and public expenditures on enforcement. On the one hand, higher murder rates may lower the probability of apprehending and convicting offenders due to a crowding effect on the efficacy of law enforcement activity if enforcement budgets are constant. On the other hand, optimal law enforcement requires that enforcement budgets and willingness for the society to resort to harsher penalties increase in response to a higher risk of victimization" (Ibid).

Limitations of the study -- the authors admit that there are certain limitations to this study. First, the important racial issue. Previous studies (prior to 1973) typically indicated that African-American offenders were more likely to receive the death penalty that whites.

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Recent studies, however, yield complex and conflicting results. "On the one hand, whites may be more supportive of the death penalty because it is often imposed on nonwhites. On the other hand, states with large nonwhite, especially black, populations may reduce the attraction of capital punishment for the same reason. As a whole, the effect of racial composition on the death penalty is ambiguous" (Ibid). Second, the data set was quite out of date -- the researchers used state-level data from 1940 and 1950; certainly too short to apply effective analysis techniques. and, by using only rather dated census years, the study does not really speak to contemporary society. The authors note, "the empirical results should be considered preliminary. A more conclusive test of the theoretical predictions of the paper is highly desirable when a richer data set becomes available in the future" (Ibid.). Finally, there is not a robust enough attention to the longitudinal relationship to capital punishment. Two data sets are clearly not robust enough. Two data sets, however, from 1990 and 2000, though, might have been more meaningful. What would be more appropriate is yearly data weighted against 10-year census information for several decades, and then based on complete national numbers, rather than a sampling of states. Thus, while valuable, the conclusions reached could certainly not be used in a meaningful manner to support or oppose the actual deterrence argument regarding the death penalty.

REFERENCES and WORKS CONSULTED

Dargie, R. (2007). Ancient Greece: Crime and Punishment. Compass Point Books.

Gibbs, Jack. (1975). Crime, Punishment and Deterrence. Elsevier Science Publishers.

Macionis, J. (2006). Society: The basics (8th ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall.

Muhlhausen, D. (2007). "The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives." the

Heritage Foundation. Cited in: http://www.heritage.org

Siegel, L. (2008). Criminology. Wadsworth….....

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