Deterrent Death Penalty

The authors, Michael L. Radelet and Ronald L Akers, Professors of Sociology, Center for Studies in Criminology and Law, University of Florida, explains that America’s top criminologist has demonstrated that the death penalty does little to reduce rates of criminal violence. They used statistics gathered over the years about the death penalty and deterrent effects and used those to ask questions to criminologist, general public, and police chiefs. By using many expert opinions they seem unbiased. These statistics would help support one of the lack of deterrent effect of the death penalty.
Jongmook Choe, University of Texas Austin, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, examines deterrent effect of the death penalty. Choe compares state-level panel data of states with capital punishment/non-capital punishment related to homicide rates. Through uses of data he failed to find meaningful effects of deterrence of the death penalty. Most execution records does not have statistically meaningful lower homicide rates than no death penalty states. Choe explains that his paper does not aim to find “universal conclusions regarding the deterrent effect.” but rather to show more evidence to why it doesn’t deter homicide which helps support his ethos and unbiased
Nagin talks about the shortcomings in existing research and how incomplete statistics are. He explains that the evidence doesn’t account for many other important factors. Like how the committee did not review the deterrent effect of non-capital states and only deterrent effect on death penalty on murder. Sound a little bias but not much, and this source would better support why the deterrent effect of the death penalty cannot be