More on the Radelet & Lacock Deterrence Study

Virginia Blogger Tamar Abrams has, "Experts Agree: Death Penalty Not a Deterrent," fresh at Huffington Post.

Like many Americans, I have long had an uneasy sense of the death penalty in this country. In order to fully support it, you have to have complete faith in our justice system and in the value of deterrence. Recently the latter has been strongly challenged: A new study shows that 88% of the country's top criminologists do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide. The study was published earlier this week in Northwestern University School of Law's Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology authored by Professor Michael Radelet, Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Traci Lacock, an attorney and Sociology grad student in Boulder.

"Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists," relied on questionnaires completed by the most pre-eminent criminologists in the country. Fully 75% of them agree that "debates about the death penalty distract Congress and state legislatures from focusing on real solutions to crime problems." Respondents were not asked for their personal opinions about the wisdom of the death penalty, but instead to answer the questions only on the basis of their understanding of the empirical research.

And, one of Tamar's links brings you back to StandDown:

A number of states are currently considering repealing the death penalty. Just this week, former CA Attorney General John Van de Kamp called for an end to California's death penalty because it would save $1 billion over five years at a time when the state is near bankruptcy. Only three countries in the world -- China, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- execute more prisoners than the U.S. and more than 128 nations have abolished the death penalty.

This latest study validates the need for the U.S. to end a practice that harkens back to the days of the Wild West. If executions hold no value to deter other crimes and if we can't avoid the risk of executing the innocent and if they are overwhelmingly burdening state budgets, why not relegate them to history? To paraphrase an old tune, "Executions? What are they any good for? Absolutely nothing."

Earlier coverage begins here.

Loyal readers know that I do not believe data have shown any deterrent effect attributable to capital punishment.  I've also been troubled by the anecdotal evidence.  There is a timely story from Nevada's Reno Review-Journal, "Former officer's death sentence upheld."

A former police officer's death sentence for murdering an elementary school teacher in Reno and a casino worker in Sparks was upheld Wednesday by the Nevada Supreme Court.

As I've noted previously , if there is any deterrent effect, it seems that it would apply to law enforcement personnel and attorneys.  After all, they are the people most informed as to what constitutes a capital crime in their state.  And yet, there is considerable anecdotal evidence that the death penalty has not deterred crooked cops and bad barristers.  I'll gladly extend the presumption of innocence in the recent case of the "LAPD detective charged with capital murder."

Los Angeles County prosecutors Monday [June 8] charged a Los Angeles Police Department detective with premeditated murder in case that dates back to 1986.

Prosecutors said they had not decided whether to seek the death penalty for Stephanie Ilene Lazarus, 49, but execution is a possibility if Lazarus is convicted of killing her former boyfriend's wife, Sherri Rae Rasmussen. Prosecutors allege a special circumstance -- that Lazarus killed Rasmussen during a burglary -- the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

It stands, however, as one more argument against the myth of deterrence.  Related articles are in the deterrence category index.