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David B. Muhlhausen
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INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/the-death-penalty-deters-crime-and-saves-lives
The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives
This testimony was delivered on
June 27, 2007, before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and
Property Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate.
My name is David
Muhlhausen. I am Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The
Heritage Foundation. I thank Chairman Russell Feingold, Ranking Member Sam
Brownback, and the rest of the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify
today. The views I express in this testimony are my own and should not be
construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
While opponents of
capital punishment have been very vocal in their opposition, Gallup opinion
polls consistently demonstrate that the American public overwhelmingly supports
capital punishment. [1]
(See Chart 1.) In Gallup's most recent poll, 67 percent of Americans favor the
death penalty for those convicted of murder, while only 28 percent are opposed.
From 2000 to the most recent poll in 2006, support for capital punishment
consistently runs a 2:1 ratio in favor.
Despite strong public support for
capital punishment, federal, state, and local officials must continually ensure
that its implementation rigorously upholds constitutional protections, such as
due process and equal protection of the law. However, the criminal process
should not be abused to prevent the lawful imposition of the death penalty in
appropriate capital cases.
Alleged Racial Discrimination in
Capital Punishment Sentences
As of December 2005, there were
37 prisoners under a sentence of death in the federal system.[2]
Of these prisoners, 43.2 percent were white, while 54.1 percent were
African-American. The fact that African-Americans are a majority of federal
prisoners on death row and a minority in the overall United States population
may lead some to conclude that the federal system discriminates against
African-Americans. However, there is little rigorous evidence that such
disparities exist in the federal system.
Under a competitive grant
process, the National Institute of Justice awarded the RAND Corporation a grant
to determine whether racial disparities exist in the federal death penalty
system. The resulting 2006 RAND study set out to determine what factors,
including the defendant's race, victim's race, and crime characteristics, affect
the decision to seek a death penalty case.[3]
Three independent teams of researchers were tasked with developing their own
methodologies to analyze the data. Only after each team independently drew
their own conclusions did they share their findings with each other.
When first looking at the raw
data without controlling for case characteristics, RAND found that large race
effects with the decision to seek the death penalty are more likely to occur
when the defendants are white and when the victims are white.[4]
However, these disparities disappeared in each of the three studies when the
heinousness of the crimes was taken into account.[5]
The RAND study concludes that the findings support the view that decisions to
seek the death penalty are driven by characteristics of crimes rather than by
race. RAND's findings are very compelling because three independent research
teams, using the same data but different methodologies, reached the same
conclusions.
While there is little evidence
that the federal capital punishment system treats minorities unfairly, some may
argue that the death penalty systems in certain states may be discriminatory.
One such state is Maryland. In May 2001, then-Governor Parris Glendening
instituted a moratorium on the use of capital punishment in Maryland in light
of concerns that it may be unevenly applied to minorities, especially
African-Americans. In 2000, Governor Glendening commissioned University of
Maryland Professor of Criminology Ray Paternoster to study the possibility of
racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty in Maryland. The
results of Professor Paternoster's study found that black defendants who murder
white victims are substantially more likely to be charged with a capital crime
and sentenced to death.[6]
In 2003, Governor Robert L.
Ehrlich wisely lifted the moratorium. His decision was justified. In 2005, a
careful review of the study by Professor of Statistics and Sociology Richard
Berk of the University of California, Los Angeles, and his coauthors found that
the results of Professor Paternoster's study do not stand up to statistical
scrutiny.[7]
According to Professor Berk's re-analysis, "For both capital charges and
death sentences, race either played no role or a small role that is very
difficult to specify. In short, it is very difficult to find convincing
evidence for racial effects in the Maryland data and if there are any, they may
not be additive."[8]
Further, race may have a small influence because "cases with a black
defendant and white victim or 'other' racial combination are less likely
to have a death sentence."[9]
The Deterrent Effect of the Death
Penalty
Federal, state, and local
officials need to recognize that the death penalty saves lives. How capital
punishment affects murder rates can be explained through general deterrence
theory, which supposes that increasing the risk of apprehension and punishment
for crime deters individuals from committing crime. Nobel laureate Gary S.
Becker's seminal 1968 study of the economics of crime assumed that individuals
respond to the costs and benefits of committing crime.[10]
According to deterrence theory,
criminals are no different from law-abiding people. Criminals "rationally
maximize their own self-interest (utility) subject to constraints (prices,
incomes) that they face in the marketplace and elsewhere."[11]
Individuals make their decisions based on the net costs and benefits of each
alternative. Thus, deterrence theory provides a basis for analyzing how capital
punishment should influence murder rates. Over the years, several studies have
demonstrated a link between executions and decreases in murder rates. In fact,
studies done in recent years, using sophisticated panel data methods,
consistently demonstrate a strong link between executions and reduced murder
incidents.
Early
Research. The rigorous examination of the
deterrent effect of capital punishment began with research in the 1970s by
Isaac Ehrlich, currently a University of Buffalo Distinguished Professor of
Economics.[12]
Professor Ehrlich's research found that the death penalty had a strong
deterrent effect. While his research was debated by other scholars,[13]
additional research by Professor Ehrlich reconfirmed his original findings.[14]
In addition, research by Professor Stephen K. Layson of the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro strongly reconfirmed Ehrlich's previous findings.[15]
Recent Research. Numerous studies published over the past few
years, using panel data sets and sophisticated social science techniques, are
demonstrating that the death penalty saves lives.[16]
Panel studies observe multiple units over several periods. The addition of
multiple data collection points gives the results of capital punishment panel
studies substantially more credibility than the results of studies that have
only single before-and-after intervention measures. Further, the longitudinal
nature of the panel data allows researchers to analyze the impact of the death
penalty over time that cross-sectional data sets cannot address.
Using a panel data set of over
3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996, Professors Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul R. Rubin,
and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each execution, on
average, results in 18 fewer murders.[17]
Using state-level panel data from 1960 to 2000, Professors Dezhbakhsh and
Shepherd were able to compare the relationship between executions and murder
incidents before, during, and after the U.S. Supreme Court's death penalty
moratorium.[18]
They found that executions had a highly significant negative relationship with
murder incidents. Additionally, the implementation of state moratoria is
associated with the increased incidence of murders.
Separately, Professor Shepherd's
analysis of monthly data from 1977 to 1999 found three important findings.[19]
First, each execution, on average, is associated with
three fewer murders. The deterred murders included both crimes of passion and
murders by intimates.
Second, executions deter the murder of whites and
African-Americans. Each execution prevents the murder of one white person, 1.5
African-Americans, and 0.5 persons of other races.
Third, shorter waits on death row are associated with
increased deterrence. For each additional 2.75-year reduction in the death row
wait until execution, one murder is deterred.
Professors H. Naci Mocan and R.
Kaj Gittings of the University of Colorado at Denver have published two studies
confirming the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The first study used
state-level data from 1977 to 1997 to analyze the influence of executions,
commutations, and removals from death row on the incidence of murder.[20]
For each additional execution, on average, about five murders were deterred.
Alternatively, for each additional commutation, on average, five additional
murders resulted. A removal from death row by either state courts or the U.S.
Supreme Court is associated with an increase of one additional murder.
Addressing criticism of their work,[21]
Professors Mocan and Gittings conducted additional analyses and found that
their original findings provided robust support for the deterrent effect of
capital punishment.[22]
Two studies by Paul R. Zimmerman,
a Federal Communications Commission economist, also support the deterrent
effect of capital punishment. Using state-level data from 1978 to 1997,
Zimmerman found that each additional execution, on average, results in 14 fewer
murders.[23]
Zimmerman's second study, using similar data, found that executions conducted
by electrocution are the most effective at providing deterrence.[24]
Using a small state-level data
set from 1995 to 1999, Professor Robert B. Ekelund of Auburn University and his
colleagues analyzed the effect that executions have on single incidents of
murder and multiple incidents of murder.[25]
They found that executions reduced single murder rates, while there was no
effect on multiple murder rates.
In summary, the recent studies using
panel data techniques have confirmed what we learned decades ago: Capital
punishment does, in fact, save lives. Each additional execution appears to
deter between three and 18 murders. While opponents of capital punishment
allege that it is unfairly used against African-Americans, each additional
execution deters the murder of 1.5 African-Americans. Further moratoria,
commuted sentences, and death row removals appear to increase the incidence of
murder.
The strength of these findings
has caused some legal scholars, originally opposed to the death penalty on
moral grounds, to rethink their case. In particular, Professor Cass R. Sunstein
of the University of Chicago has commented:
If the recent evidence of
deterrence is shown to be correct, then opponents of capital punishment will
face an uphill struggle on moral grounds. If each execution is saving lives,
the harms of capital punishment would have to be very great to justify its
abolition, far greater than most critics have heretofore alleged.[26]
Conclusion
Americans support capital
punishment for two good reasons. First, there is little evidence to suggest
that minorities are treated unfairly. Second, capital punishment produces a
strong deterrent effect that saves lives.
David B. Muhlhausen, Ph.D., is Senior Policy
Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
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