> Dean Scott: As an active opponent of the deasth penalty I saw this. It
is highly skewed and has an agenda. The overwhelming data for
decades/centuries shows just the oppsoite. Blessings. GDVW+
>
> AP
> Updated: 4:09 a.m. ET June 11, 2007
>
> Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the
> past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court
> disputes over lethal injection in more than a
> half-dozen states and progress toward outright
> abolishment in New Jersey.
>
> The steady drumbeat of DNA exonerations — pointing out
> flaws in the justice system — has weighed against
> capital punishment. The moral opposition is loud, too,
> echoed in Europe and the rest of the industrialized
> world, where all but a few countries banned executions
> years ago.
>
> What gets little notice, however, is a series of
> academic studies over the last half-dozen years that
> claim to settle a once hotly debated argument —
> whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to
> murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three
> and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of
> each convicted killer.
>
> The reports have horrified death penalty opponents and
> several scientists, who vigorously question the data
> and its implications.
>
> So far, the studies have had little impact on public
> policy. New Jersey’s commission on the death penalty
> this year dismissed the body of knowledge on
> deterrence as “inconclusive.”
>
> But the ferocious argument in academic circles could
> eventually spread to a wider audience, as it has in
> the past.
>
> “Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There
> is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an
> economics professor at the University of Colorado at
> Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent
> effect.”
>
> ‘The results are robust’
> A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that
> re-examined the data, found that each execution
> results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death
> sentence means five more homicides. “The results are
> robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose
> the death penalty. But my results show that the death
> penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?”
>
> Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers
> since 2001 that suggest capital punishment has
> deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic
> theory — if the cost of something (be it the purchase
> of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too
> high, people will change their behavior (forgo apples
> or shy from murder).
>
> To explore the question, they look at executions and
> homicides, by year and by state or county, trying to
> tease out the impact of the death penalty on homicides
> by accounting for other factors, such as unemployment
> data and per capita income, the probabilities of
> arrest and conviction, and more.
>
> Among the conclusions:
>
> Each execution deters an average of 18 murders,
> according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at
> Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the
> deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).
> The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to
> 150 additional homicides over four years following,
> according to a 2006 study by professors at the
> University of Houston.
> Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent
> effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on
> death row, one murder would be prevented, according to
> a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.
> In 2005, there were 16,692 cases of murder and
> nonnegligent manslaughter nationally. There were 60
> executions.
>
> The studies’ conclusions drew a philosophical response
> from a well-known liberal law professor, University of
> Chicago’s Cass Sunstein. A critic of the death
> penalty, in 2005 he co-authored a paper titled “Is
> capital punishment morally required?”
>
> “If it’s the case that executing murderers prevents
> the execution of innocents by murderers, then the
> moral evaluation is not simple,” he told The
> Associated Press. “Abolitionists or others, like me,
> who are skeptical about the death penalty haven’t
> given adequate consideration to the possibility that
> innocent life is saved by the death penalty.”
>
> Sunstein said that moral questions aside, the data
> needs more study.
>
> Critics of the findings have been vociferous.
>
> Some claim that the pro-deterrent studies made
> profound mistakes in their methodology, so their
> results are untrustworthy. Another critic argues that
> the studies wrongly count all homicides, rather than
> just those homicides where a conviction could bring
> the death penalty. And several argue that there are
> simply too few executions each year in the United
> States to make a judgment.
>
> ‘Flimsy’ studies?
> “We just don’t have enough data to say anything,” said
> Justin Wolfers, an economist at the Wharton School of
> Business who last year co-authored a sweeping critique
> of several studies, and said they were “flimsy” and
> appeared in “second-tier journals.”
>
> “This isn’t left vs. right. This is a nerdy
> statistician saying it’s too hard to tell,” Wolfers
> said. “Within the advocacy community and legal
> scholars who are not as statistically adept, they will
> tell you it’s still an open question. Among the small
> number of economists at leading universities whose
> bread and butter is statistical analysis, the argument
> is finished.”
>
> Several authors of the pro-deterrent reports said they
> welcome criticism in the interests of science, but
> said their work is being attacked by opponents of
> capital punishment for their findings, not their
> flaws.
>
> “Instead of people sitting down and saying ’let’s see
> what the data shows,’ it’s people sitting down and
> saying ’let’s show this is wrong,”’ said Paul Rubin,
> an economist and co-author of an Emory University
> study. “Some scientists are out seeking the truth, and
> some of them have a position they would like to
> defend.”
>
> The latest arguments replay a 1970s debate that had an
> impact far beyond academic circles.
>
> Then, economist Isaac Ehrlich had also concluded that
> executions deterred future crimes. His 1975 report was
> the subject of mainstream news articles and public
> debate, and was cited in papers before the U.S.
> Supreme Court arguing for a reversal of the court’s
> 1972 suspension of executions. (The court, in 1976,
> reinstated the death penalty.)
>
> Ultimately, a panel was set up by the National Academy
> of Sciences which decided that Ehrlich’s conclusions
> were flawed. But the new pro-deterrent studies haven’t
> gotten that kind of scrutiny.
>
> At least not yet. The academic debate, and the larger
> national argument about the death penalty itself —
> with questions about racial and economic disparities
> in its implementation — shows no signs of fading away.
>
> Steven Shavell, a professor of law and economics at
> Harvard Law School and co-editor-in-chief of the
> American Law and Economics Review, said in an e-mail
> exchange that his journal intends to publish several
> articles on the statistical studies on deterrence in
> an upcoming issue.
>
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