Deterrence

Round Separator

Studies show no link between the presence or absence of the death penalty and murder rates.

DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC

DPIC Podcast: Discussions With DPIC

Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? Exploring mur­der rates, killings of police offi­cers, and the death penalty

DPIC Page: Murder Rates

DPIC Page: Murder Rates

View DPIC's information about state-by-state murder rates. State and regional murder statistics show no correlation between use of the death penalty and reduced crime.

Overview

Deterrence is probably the most commonly expressed rationale for the death penalty. The essence of the theory is that the threat of being executed in the future will be sufficient to cause a significant number of people to refrain from committing a heinous crime they had otherwise planned. Deterrence is not principally concerned with the prevention of further killing by an already convicted death-penalty defendant. That falls under the topic of incapacitation.

Deterrence should not be considered in a vacuum. The critical question is not whether potential criminals will be dissuaded from killing because they would face the death penalty rather than no punishment at all. Other punishments such as life without parole might provide equal deterrence at far less costs and without the attendant risk of executing an innocent person. Whether the death penalty is a proven method of lowering the murder rate has been subjected to many studies over many decades.

It is not enough to compare jurisdictions with the death penalty to those without unless the study controls for the many other variables that could affect the murder rate. For example, lower unemployment rates correlate with lower crime rates. More police involvement in the local community seems to reduce crime. The death penalty affects only a tiny percentage of even those who commit murder. Its effect is very difficult to pinpoint, and the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that past studies have neither proven nor disproven a deterrent effect.

At Issue

If the death penalty is not a proven deterrent to murder, is it worth the excessive costs, risks of error, uncertainty of completion, and other problems that are inherent to its practice? On the political level, the deterrent value of the death penalty is often taken for granted without a careful examination of the research or a consideration of less risky alternatives. This is especially relevant given that death penalty use has been declining dramatically. Most states are not carrying out any executions in a given year.

What DPIC Offers

DPIC has collected many of the deterrent studies that have been conducted in the modern era and has summarized their results. It also provides some of the raw data on which such studies rely, such as the murder rate for each state in each year in the modern era, along with the number of executions and death sentences for each state in the same periods.

News & Developments

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush Expresses Regrets Regarding His Experience with Capital Punishment: ​ “ I Was Very Uncomfortable With It”

In a July pod­cast episode from Deeper Dive with Dara Kam, for­mer Florida Governor Jeb Bush (pic­tured) spoke about his beliefs on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and his regrets about not hav­ing enough time to reform Florida’s death penal­ty process. Gov. Bush, who over­saw 21 exe­cu­tions dur­ing his eight years in office, said that ​ “ it’s one of those things that would prob­a­bly be unpop­u­lar to do, but fig­ur­ing out a way to reform the sys­tem giv­en the exist­ing laws that we have now, I think would be…

RESEARCH : Halting the Use of the Death Penalty Did Not Result in an Increase in Homicide Rates

Stephen Oliphant’s recent study on the death penalty’s effect on homi­cide rates pub­lished in Criminology & Public Policy found ​ “ no evi­dence of a deter­rent effect attrib­ut­able to death penal­ty statutes.” Oliphant first dis­cuss­es deter­rence the­o­ry, which ​ “ posits that pun­ish­ment, or the threat of pun­ish­ment, dis­cour­ages indi­vid­u­als from com­mit­ting crime,” and its role in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment dis­course, where pro­po­nents of the death penal­ty have argued that the threat of the death…

Despite Ineffectiveness as Public-Safety Tool, Anti-Abolition Lawmakers Push Bills to Reinstate Death Penalty for Killings of Police Officers

Despite the absence of evi­dence that the death penal­ty pro­tects police or pro­motes pub­lic safe­ty, law­mak­ers in sev­er­al states that have abol­ished cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment have intro­duced bills to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment for the mur­ders of police…

56 Prosecutors Issue Joint Statement Calling for End of ​ ‘ Broken’ Death Penalty

Calling cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. ​ “ bro­ken,” 56 elect­ed pros­e­cu­tors from across the coun­try have issued a joint state­ment urg­ing sys­temic changes to end the death penal­ty nation­wide. As an ini­tial step, the pros­e­cu­tors pledged to not seek the death penal­ty ​ “ against peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties, post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, his­to­ries of trau­mat­ic brain injury, or oth­er intel­lec­tu­al or cog­ni­tive chal­lenges that dimin­ish their abil­i­ty to ful­ly under­stand and reg­u­late their own…

Citing ​ ‘ Christian Values,’ Papua New Guinea Abolishes the Death Penalty

Citing its ​ “ Christian val­ues” and the unavail­abil­i­ty of any humane means to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, Papua New Guinea has abol­ished capital…

In This Section

National Academies Report on Deterrence Studies

National Academies Report on Deterrence Studies

A report released in 2012 by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed.

Discussions With DPIC

Discussions With DPIC — Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? Exploring mur­der rates, killings of police offi­cers, and the death penalty

Brennan Center for Justice Report: What Caused the Crime Decline?

Law Enforcement Views on Deterrence

Law Enforcement Views on Deterrence

International Dialogue: Police Officials Argue Death Penalty Doesn’t Make Us Safer

International Dialogue: Police Officials Argue Death Penalty Doesn’t Make Us Safer

Law enforcement officials who came together in Washington, D.C., in 2010 for an international dialogue on the death penalty argue that the death penalty is not a deterrent and that societies are better off without it.