Deterrence and the death penalty Why the statistics should be ignored

摘要

The report emphasises that deterrence is but one of many considerations relevant to rendering a judgement on whether the death penalty is good public policy. Even though the scholarly evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is too weak to guide decisions, this does not mean that people should have no views on capital punishment. Judgement about whether there is a deterrent effect is still relevant to policy, but that judgement should not be based on existing research or justified by quoting research. As we have demonstrated, existing research is too greatly flawed to justify any conclusion. Just as important, the committee did not investigate the moral arguments for or against capital punishment or the empirical evidence on whether capital punishment is administered in a non-discriminatory and consistent fashion, whether the risk of mistaken execution is acceptably small, or how the cost of administering the death penalty compares to other alternatives. All of these issues are relevant to making a judgement about whether the death penalty is good public policy.