(Institution Name)
Capital punishment is amongst the most controversial aspects of law and order that have ever been debated in the history of legislation. The advent of capital punishment initiated in pre-historical times and the purpose of this punishment was not just disposing of the accused person on whom the crime has been proven, but also to ensure that an example was made of that person, and a message about the supremacy of law was conveyed into the society.
However, over the period of time and into the modern period, it was highlighted by humanitarian organizations and movements that killing a person is inhumane, and instead correction and imprisonment at the state’s expense should be imposed. The question, however, is whether capital punishment is an effective way to discourage people from committing the crime of murder or not.
As has been discussed by Nagin and Pepper (2012), the crime rates of murder have not been found to have a generalizable direct effect with capital punishment. This is because in some places the crimes are reduced in the wake of this legislation and in some places it is escalated. The academic domain of legislation and its effectiveness is yet to produce evidence about whether or not the prevalence of capital punishment does affects the events of murder crimes.
Similarly, as has been discussed by Vergano (2012), the research studies that have been conducted in the past, are not very helpful in concluding whether or not the capital punishment law has been effective in keeping the murder rates on the lower side. It was hence decided by the committee that was made in order to review the effectiveness of the prior research that the academic stock of knowledge is not well suited for building an argument on it.
The study of Donohue and Wolfers (2006), discusses in details and nullifies the findings of the previously conducted researches about their claims that there exists a strong relationship between the prevalence of murder crimes and the effective legislation of capital punishment.
The rationale given for this argument is that when the people are considerate towards not carrying out an act of offence involving murder when they know that they will get punished by death upon having gotten caught. The studies hence conducted in the past, according to this article have been misleading; the researcher’s own bias towards the effectiveness of capital punishment law has caused this to happen.
Whereas for a neutral observant, it is clearly visible that there has not occurred any change in the crime rates and hence no relationship can be drawn between the effectiveness of capital punishment law and the rates of murder crime. There has always been a great deal of tug and war between the academicians who advocate capital punishment and those who revoke it.
And hence, both the academic schools have not kept themselves back in ensuring that they conducted their respective researches full of their personal biased. And hence in an attempt to prove their points, they went the extra mile, conducting researches on speculations more than on logic.
Fegan (2005) has explained his research that capital punishment is, in fact, a negative addition to the legislation process. He explained this by stating that the advent of capital punishment compromises the rights of human beings who get killed in order to satisfy the law. Additionally, the cost involved in the execution of prisoners is enough for this law to be considered non-worthy.
He also explained that as has been observed in the past there is a great possibility that an innocent person might get killed and executed. In order to prevent this from happening, Fegan (2005) is convinced that the law should be made such that it imprisons people who commit the crime of murder rather than executing them.
The article, however, fails to address the fact that if the criminals are all put in jail, then how will that affect the affordability of the government and the tax payer’s money will be used for spending on food and clothing and shelter of the criminals. This makes this research study incomprehensible too as it only addresses one side of the story and not the other side of it.
Once again, this research study is an example of the biased view of the researcher and its reflection in the findings, only this time the bias of the researcher is against the prevalence of capital punishment. As has been discussed in the article of Berk (2005) that the data collected for the purpose of researches conducted on whether the advent of capital punishment is effective in lowering the rates of murder crime or not, has been greatly flawed. The analyses of the data collected by research indicated that a large portion of the data was influenced by certain variables that were not considered while conducting the research.
Additionally, methodological mistakes have been found prevalence in the previous researches. These methodological mistakes involve mistakes related to sampling framework and based on the researcher’s understanding of carrying out the neutral study. The selection of variables also blurs the effectiveness of this research study.
References
Berk, R. (2005). New Claims about Executions and General Deterrence: Deja Vu All Over Again? J Empirical Legal Studies Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2(2), 303-330.
Nagin, D. S., & Pepper, J. V. (Eds.). (2012). Deterrence and the death penalty. National Academies Press.
D. Vergano, "NRC: Death penalty effect research 'fundamentally flawed'," USA Today, April 18, 2012). Read the NRC's Report Brief (4 pages).
Donohue, J., &Wolfers, J. J. (2006). The Death Penalty: No Evidence for Deterrence. The
Economists' Voice, 3(5).
Fagan, J. (2005, July 14). Public Policy Choices on Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A
Retrieved February 25, 2016
