Expanding the Death Penalty
February 7, 2007, 1:37 pm
Posted by Eduardo Peñalver
Several states are bucking the national trend and considering expansions of their use of the death penalty. The states in question are Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Missouri, Georgia and Utah. Texas and Tennessee, for example, want to expand the death penalty to cover some non-homicide crimes, such as child molestation.
One hardly need point out that many of these states are in the Bible Belt where our Fundie friends love the death penalty.
Sidebar poll with this story asks whether you think the death penalty deters murder. I’ve never understood why that matters.
What people think doesn’t necessarily reflect reality.
Nor does killing people to deter more killings make a lot of sense morally.
Among the many goals in sentencing (retribution/punishment, rehabilitation, making the victim whole, promoting community safety) there are also deterrence goals, viz. general and spcific to the individual convicted.
The preponderance of research shows that there is no major general deterrence in the death penalty, though, obviously, there is a specific deterrence accheived (with finality!)
The issue in the states mentioned seems to be based on a kind of retribution that seeks vengance proportionate to the horror of the crime.
This has not ben a traditional use of sentencing but may gain a certain political popularity.
Siunce the “lex talionis” is no longer in force in general theory. as far as I know, these proposals, while having some popularity may not stand up for too long in the field.
deterrence matters for a major reason.
If the saving of innocent life matters, then deterrence matters.
All propects for negative outcomes deter some.
There are no exceptions.
Dudley — that’s just wrong for a number of reasons. First, you are assuming that people who commit homicide are rationally calculating the likelihood of being caught against the severity of the penalty they will receive. It’s not clear that that is happening in most cases of homicide. It’s also not clear that, given the small number of cases in which the DP is imposed (and the even smaller number in which it is actually carried out), that it presents much more of a deterrent (even for rational calculators) than life in prison without parole. Facile theory is no replacement for actual evidence in this area.