I guess I don't understand how one can determine how many deaths are
"saved."  Wouldn't terminal incarceration do the same thing?

MLW+

-----Original Message-----
From: charles scott [mailto:crscottblu@...] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 3:01 PM
To: faith life
Subject: [FaithandLife] death penalty debate



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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