Claremont Independent

Last Updated: 6/23/06 Section: Opinion

France used to be cool

Over the years, the question of whether or not it is just for the government to sentence death for a convicted criminal has troubled lawmakers and laymen on both sides of the party line. The fact that the death penalty is such a bipartisan issue shows that one cannot take it lightly. People throw many phrases around when they argue about the death penalty - "playing God," "an eye for an eye" - but the most important things to look at are the facts.

It is dangerous to let emotions cloud the discussion. For one, emotions can make one focus more on sympathy for criminals than on the intentions of the law. Conversely, victims' families may have a too-strong desire for vengeance that is less rational than due legal process. Personally, I look at capital punishment in much the same way as I look at abortion: whatever an individual's personal moral beliefs, it is intelligent and mature to study the statistics and outcomes throughout the years.

Is the death penalty a deterrent? This is an interesting question. It is easy to believe that when a person finds himself aiming a rifle at a convenience store clerk, finger on the trigger, his foremost thought is not the possibility of lethal injection. However, studies have proven that in states that execute death row inmates, the murder rates have declined. It stands to reason, upon examining the statistical evidence, that there has been some social impact.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court began overturning state death penalty convictions regularly. Shortly thereafter, murder rates skyrocketed out of their previous decline. By 1970, the Supreme Court had overturned all existing capital punishment statutes. The homicide rate in 1963 was 4.9 for every 100,000 people. In 1972, it was more than twice that at 10.1 per 100,000.

The 1990s began quite a shift in policy and murder rates. For decades, inmates on death row had escaped execution. Throughout the 1990s, however, the states executed more death row inmates than they did in the previous 40 years. By 1999, the murder rate had gone down to 6.4 per 100,000 - the lowest it had been since 1966.

As with all statistical correlations, it is possible that many other factors could have caused the simultaneous increase in executions and decrease in homicides. However, the only way to rule out a coincidence would be to conduct an unethical experiment executing only an isolated group of randomly chosen death row inmates (perhaps, those who transgressed on odd-numbered days, for example).

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