Does The Death Penalty Deter Serious Crime

Does the death penalty deter serious crime? Ohio, 1973, three men, ages 17,18 and 20 are sentenced to death row because of the testimony of a 12 year old boy claiming to have witnessed the men fleeing the scene of a murder. Decades after their arrest, after spending most of their adult lives stuck in a prison, the boy recanted his testimony and the brothers were found not guilty. (NPR staff 2014) Punishment is based around the idea that there must be a consequence, or punitive measure taken for doing something that society dictates is immoral, illegal, or in some cases, just wrong. In order for punishment to work, there must be a both the wrongdoer and a higher authority to inflict the punishment. The death penalty is usually thought of

People do things like speed on the way to work very casually, but if instead of a speeding ticket you were suddenly executed by a firing squad, you would be much more likely to follow the speed limit. Something as simple as speeding is done because someone is impatient and want to get someplace faster, and with such a simple reason, any harsher punishment than a ticket would make people think twice about pressing harder on their gas pedal. However, with a more serious crime such as murder, the reason tends to stem from intense and strong emotions like anger, heartbreak, or greed. Killers don’t think, they do. Dr. Jonathan Groner, an associate professor at Ohio State University who does research on the deterrent effect of capital punishment says that "The psychological mind-set of the criminal is such that they are not able to consider consequences at the time of the crime. Most crimes are crimes of passion that are done in situations involving intense excitement or concern. People who commit these crimes are not in a normal state of mind -- they do not consider the consequences in a logical way," (qtd. in Kronenwetter). When someone is committing a crime of passion, they do not have time to consider the possible implications it could have on their future, they are following their exact emotions in that moment. Therefore, the looming fear of the death penalty isn’t present, and does

According to the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology: 88.2% of criminologists that were polled do not think that capital punishment works as a deterrent (Radelet 2009) and less than ten percent of those polled think that the death penalty works as a stronger deterrent than a life sentence in prison.(Radelet 2009). Experts agree, death penalty does not deter