Does Capital Punishment Deter Crime?

Capital punishment is the ultimate penalty which can be imposed on a person for a wrongful action as is defined by the state. The debate of whether or not its implementation in society will deter people from committing the same crime in the future has been ongoing for centuries and cannot be easily concluded for most academics.(Hood and Hoyle 321)

The problem in this debate of a reliable deterrence is whether one should rely on using intellect and physical data, or human instinct and a conscience decision using a case by case strategy to formulate a decision and take a side. As will be shown here, the death penalty itself does not deter crime but rather it is the cultural framework of a society that results in deterrence of crime.

Firstly, there is a clashing presentation of data when trying to debate capital punishment and its ability to deter crime. The information to debate within a western framework lies within the data research of deterrence, referring to their being data to support a lesser number of criminals following through with crimes punishable by death than would offend if offered life imprisonment. (Hood and Hoyle 321)

The ideal result here would be obtaining reliable statistical data that either proves the reality of deterrence or the opposite. This will be the first conflict to be addressed in this paper as it seems to be an essential argument for or against the subject of deterrence. From an international perspective this is unique information, as not all people in the world obtain the freedom to question this topic publicly and compile data to back up their argument. (Hood and Hoyle 320)

Second, I will look at how the perceived nature of Capital Punishment is viewed by distinct societies and how this may or may not have a deterrent effect in countries such as China and Iran versus in Canada and United States. And lastly, I will look at the methodology of determining the appropriateness of capital punishment and the crimes that should fall under this penalty. These can be strikingly different in countries representing different national ideals and values, and may form the root of cultural values and practises.

In the countries of China and Saudi Arabia, the government's claim that their death penalty does in fact deter much crime. And although they do not maintain accurate archives documenting their extensive uses of the death penalty, especially in the case of China, the world is aware that the amount of capital punishment carried out here far exceeds the amount of many other countries combined. (Hood and Hoyle 319)This fact leads way for an aspect of truth of crime deterrence in the Chinese law and enforcement of capital punishment, due to the work of Joanna Shepherd.

Shepherd is an American who has done significant amounts of research on the deterrence effect of capital punishment and according to her findings, "a small number of executions is positively correlated with murder rates (i.e. they 'brutalize' citizens, leading to more murders) whereas above a 'threshold' a larger number of executions is negatively related to the murder rate (i.e. they act as a deterrent)." (Hood and Hoyle 322)

The reality is that this information is difficult to accept at face value, because in measuring homicide rates one can never know the situation behind each victim. If a murderer is subject to the death penalty for their crime, perhaps they would be more willing to kill spectators or other witnesses at the crime scene, whereas a person in a similar homicidal situation but not subject to the death penalty may more readily accept the fate of life imprisonment without engaging in as many murders.(Hood and Hoyle 319) In Canada for example, this has shown to be statistically significant in the increased rate of convicted homicides with 1st degree murder, while manslaughter and lesser crimes that people are tried for under circumstances of less evidence have reduced. (Hood and Hoyle 320)This is a great indication for Canada that the justice system became more reliable in finding and persecuting homicide offenders with the maximum sentence after removing the penalty.

In Canada, the government maintained the death penalty as a legal punishment for 10 years before its abolishment, without actually sentencing criminals with death. This has been the case in other countries as well for periods of time where the underlying purpose is to deter crime. Any government participating in such a thing surely believes that capital punishment itself is deterrence, not necessarily its extensive use.(Hood and Hoyle 321) The American government has taken on a more traditional and conservative view on the subject than Canada in the past few decades, one which relates itself to the old saying an eye for an eye.

Although claims have been made with