Controversial Study Says Executions Save Lives

This is what I have believed all along. Execution of murderers is not so much about punishment as it is about crime prevention. It does indeed have a deterrant value, plus no penal system can ever be 100% escape-proof.

For all those who think we should be merciful to a murderer and not kill them: What about mercy for these 18 innocents?

But critics scoff that the study has no real statistical basis.

And the critics are right. Economists devise very bad, unrealistic models for things that can't be modeled very well. Most professional economists have a knowledge of statistics and probability that is less than an undergraduate in statistics. They are no more credible than a sociologist or psychologist.

No news here. See, e.g., Kenneth Allen McDuff, the poster child for the death penalty.

In the late 1960s, McDuff was sentenced to die for murdering two teenagers. When the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty, McDuff's sentence was commuted to life in prison. McDuff was paroled in 1990. He quickly embarked on his new hobby, abducting and murdering women, at least three that we know about.

McDuff was finally executed in 1998. It was too late for the women that he murdered after his first death sentence was commuted, but I can guarantee that he has not murdered any more women since then. He won't murder any more either.

How many lives would have been saved if McDuff had been executed in the late 60s like he should have been? How many more lives were saved when he finally did get the punishment he deserved.

McDuff makes it pretty difficult to argue that the death penalty does not save lives.

It's a simple fact that most criminals are career criminals. No need for a study, if you execute a killer, you prevent them from killing anymore people. I suppose you could achieve the same thing will a life sentence, but what about parole, escape, or even murder inside the prison? Personally, I would rather see us set up penal colonies again, then such people would not only be removed from society, but also society would not have to pay their cable, gym, drug, and food bills.

"We are not coming into this debate with ideological predispositions," Dezhbakhsh said. "We are trying to deal with the facts as they are and our loyalties to the scientific methodologies."

Well, that's refreshing, that's exactly the philosophy all researchers should have. I am currently studying some of the really new techniques for analyzing information, such things as data mining and knowledge management. Sophisticated computer analysis is starting to come on line thanks to very sophisticated algorythms, but also the growing availability of vast quantities of digital information, an artifact of normal record keeping in the computer age.

Capital punishment opponents like Mears point to other figures suggesting that the death penalty doesn’t deter murderers.
"If the murder rate is higher in Texas than it is in those states without the death penalty, that certainly should call into question the validity of this premise," he said.

Pay attention, Folks. You just read a textbook example of an argumentative non-sequitor. This idiot's brand of intellectually lazy, unimaginative, and arrogant "analysis" is one of the reasons that government does so many hideously stupid things these days. His statement above has no meaning whatsoever, but he ascribes meaning to it solely to fit his personal belief system.

The other researchers may or may not have made a valid statistical analysis, but to dismiss it with such a raucously foolish justification deserves pillory, sensure, and ridicule.

Perhaps those unbiased researchers can figure out how many people die as a result of the arrogant stupidity of the anointed left.

A book called Neither Cruel Nor Unusual Punishment stated the same basic things. It is a much older book.

Death Penalty Frank G. Carrington, "Neither Cruel Nor Unusual Punishment": Year ---Executions --Number of homicides 1955--- 76 --- 7,000+
1960 ----56 ----8,000+
1966 ----1 ----10,000+
1972---- 0 ----18,000+
1975 ----0 ----20,000+
1993 ----38 ----24,562 BJS
1994 ----31 ----23,305 BJS
1995 ----56 ----20,347 BJS
1996 ----45 ----19,645 BJS
1997 ----74 ----18,209 BJS
1998 ----68 ----16,914 BJS

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