Here we have a bunch of people who seem unclear on what they are arguing for. For them to say that the system they favor was not on its way to frying 100 innocent people, but only on its way to frying 30 innocent people is not a powerful argument in their favor:
Posted by DeLong at January 08, 2003 03:31 PM | TrackbackDeath penalty gains unlikely defenders: Professors speak out in support of executions: ...about a dozen professors and social scientists... are attacking... [the claim] that more than 100 people released from death row during the past 30 years were ''innocent.''The researchers say that only about a third of those released from death row could show they were innocent of murder...
I maintain that the strongest argument against the death penalty is that prosecutors and the police don't have perfect incentives when it comes to finding the guilty party. Most of the time they do nab the right person, but the rare cases the system goes awry are perverse, not cases of random error. A related factor is the apparent unwillingness of police and/or prosecutors to accept scientifically validated conclusions when it goes against the methods they're used to.
Another point---the article Brad linked to contains this paragraph: A study last year by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta examined the nearly 6,000 death sentences imposed in the USA from 1977 through 1996. The authors compared changes in murder rates in 3,000 U.S. counties to the likelihood of being executed for murder in that county. They found that murder rates declined in counties where capital punishment was imposed. The researchers said a statistical formula suggested that each execution saved the lives of 18 potential victims. This sounds suspiciously like John Lott's flawed econometric analysis behind the claim that allowing more citizens to carry concealed weapons decreases certain crimes.
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on January 8, 2003 04:18 PMThis is quite simple, as Mark Twain put it, "It is better that one innocent man suffers, than that 500 innocent suffer". Men are not hanged for stealing horses (or murder), they are hanged so that horses shall not be stolen (nor people murdered). This is an unpleasant reality, but there is nothing to do but weight the costs and the benefits.
30 innocent sent to death row in 30 years, is one a year (and it probably isn't even many number). Policemen with guns kill innocents on the street in greater numbers than that, should we take the weapons away from the police?
And how many innocent were actually executed?
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on January 8, 2003 04:52 PMRemind me again of the average or median skin color of those innocents who are executed? (I just learned recently that the probability of a white jury to convict an African American man to death penalty is significantly higher than in any other combination of skin color on either side... How surprising!) I apologize, as usual, for my political correctness and concern for racial equity. These just happen to be my favorite kinds of "vanity"...
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on January 8, 2003 05:01 PMTo look at the death penalty apart from the entire criminal justice system is pointless. The proper goal of a criminal justice system is to protect the harmless from the predatory, and our current system does that less well than it should, for reasons unrelated to the death penalty, which means that the death penalty debate is a distraction from the more important goal, and ignores that it really isn't necessary to execute murderers to protect the public.The next time you read an account of a murder conviction in your local newspaper, read what is printed about the murderers criminal background. More often than not, the murderer has worked up to murder through lesser violent offenses; murder is not the typical crime of the first time offender. If one's goal is to reduce the number of murder victims, the most sure way of doing so is to lock up first time violent offenders until they are well into middle-age if not elderly. To those that complain about the cost; a nation that can stupidly spend billions attempting to criminalize choices regarding which vegetable matter people choose to intoxicate themselves with can certainly afford to perform the base function of the state, which is to protect the peaceful from physical predation, assuming that the nation changes it's priorities. Also, calculations of cost too often fail to factor in the tremendous economic cost of murders, rapes, and robberies, and what it would mean if several thousand corpses now mouldering in graves were instead productive citizens living among us. Extremely long incarceration of first time violent offenders would have this effect, and render the debate about the death penalty far less urgent, for there would be far fewer predators working up the ladder to homicide, instead of sitting in small rooms until they were elederly. I think it likely that such an approach would render the death penalty uneeded, particularly given the near-certain chance, although small in total numbers, that some innocent people will be wrongly executed.
Posted by: Will Allen on January 8, 2003 06:14 PMThe death penalty is a matter of conscious, with each of us, who support it, having a different rationale.
The sister of a classmate of my wife was involved in this case.
Two brothers, just out of prison, forced their way into the home where 5 college kids lived. After robbing them the brothers kidnapped the group at gunpoint and took them to a soccer field. They proceeded to rape the girls and then shot all of them as they left to go rob their ATM accounts. One of the girls survived and ran bloody and naked for help. Her boyfriend was one of the ones killed. He planned on proposing to her, the engagement ring was one of the items stolen.
Basicaly I don't care about punishment retribution, or deterrence, I simply don't want these two alive. I don't want murdering psychopaths to exist.
Posted by: Brian on January 8, 2003 07:00 PMYeah, the infamous, horrific, Wichita murders. Note that the two brothers had just been released from prison. If I remember correctly, both had prior history of violent criminality. Imagine if both had been incarcerated until they were elderly, upon their first violent offense. Fine innocent, productive people (actually six people; I think these sociopaths killed another person during this rampage), who were loved by many, would be alive today.
Posted by: Will Allen on January 8, 2003 07:21 PMFew would want to deny that there are evil people or that the wanton killing of children is the most heinous and despicable of crimes. Yet on the evidence, it is difficult to deny that there have been misacarriages of justice or that some innocent people have been wrongly executed or imprisoned for decades for crimes of which they were unjustly convicted.
Least it be thought I am making some special issue of the American system of justice, in Britain we have nothing to be complacent about as this report of some of the more infamous cases of miscarriages of justice shows: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/15/umiss.xml
The Roman adage applies: Hard cases make bad law.
Posted by: Bob Briant on January 8, 2003 08:16 PMWe mostly agree for once, Will. I think sentences are far too long for non-violent offenses, and "violent" offenses that are just barely so: incarceration in the criminal justice system only increases the likelihood they'll commit crimes in the future, IMHO, and there's a good pile of studies showing the same thing.
Maybe "longer sentences for real crime, shorter for everything else?" I don't think going to jail for a decade over crack possession is having particularly nice effects, either.....
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 8, 2003 10:30 PMI don't think going to jail for a decade over crack possession is having particularly nice effects, either.....
Wrong as usual.
Why do you think violent crime rates have collapsed here in NYC over the past decade?
And before you trot out the race card, look up the perps in Wichita.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 9, 2003 04:29 AMHard to make any sense out of Patrick Sullivan's post. While I certainly don't want to defend shoddy policework (a classmate of mine in high school died from it), I think any rational person can admit that it's hard to eliminate accidental death of innocents when police have to make snap decisions in dangerous situations. In contrast, there is nothing hard about taking a captured dangerous psychopath and keeping him in prison for life (as opposed to killing him). So what's your point, Patrick?
The state should not be wasting resources through selective criminalization of varying methods of intoxication. A fairly large percentage of the population enjoys consuming intoxicants, a much smaller subset will have trouble controlling their use of intoxicants, and attempts by the state to criminalize some types of intoxicants inevitably leads to black markets that have much worse effect than the intoxication does. Do we really need, at this point, to review the evidence that this is the case? Now, when people commit violent crimes (and I consider breaking and entering a violent crime, given how it often leads to physical confrontation), in order to obtain intoxicants, such people should be incarcerated for extraordinarily long periods, well into late middle age, if not until elderly. The point being, those that choose to become predators are segregated from society until age overcomes their predatory nature, and before the predator works up the ladder to homicide. If these seems harsh to first time violent offenders, well, that is the point; meeting the obligation of protecting the peaceful dwarfs all other considerations.
Posted by: Will Allen on January 9, 2003 07:39 AMHaving just seen the Two Towers, I was confused at first by Will's concerns of "protecting the peaceful dwarfs," but I sorted myself out.
“The state should not be wasting resources through selective criminalization of varying methods of intoxication. A fairly large percentage of the population enjoys consuming intoxicants, a much smaller subset will have trouble controlling their use of intoxicants, and attempts by the state to criminalize some types of intoxicants inevitably leads to black markets that have much worse effect than the intoxication does. Do we really need, at this point, to review the evidence that this is the case?”
Our nation’s bizarre "war on drugs” must be stopped. Far too many people are in prison for minor drug offenses. President Bush should cease listening to the far right wing Protestant Puritans who have inadvertently corrupted our legal processes and enriched the drug lords. We are in a real war against terrorists and simply cannot afford to waste anymore time on this silliness. And yes, these ridiculous drug laws disproportionately put more people of color behind bars.
I am also appalled by these new TV commercials equating drug use with supporting terrorists. The reality is that the unintended consequences of our drug laws provides revenue to the terrorists. Decriminalization would immediately remove the profit of these transactions.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 9, 2003 08:34 AMBetter check my use of intoxicants, especially before lunch....
Posted by: Will Allen on January 9, 2003 08:52 AMTo what does Will Allen wish to commit us? Given that most murderers start out as lesser violent offenders, what proportion of violent offenders go on to become murderers (or commit some other act that would result in a long prison term under the present system)? How many instead become reasonably
productive citizens? Is it possible to tell the difference? How many people who don't merit long incerations under current criteria are you willing to lock up to prevent one hypothetical murder?
Bucky Dent wrote, Why do you think violent crime rates have collapsed here in NYC over the past decade?
Yes, a lot of people have made reference to facts like this.
Problem is that violent crime has decreased around the country. So you have to "regress out" a national effect before trumpeting the effects of a policy in one locale.
I haven't heard any conclusive analysis of why crime rates have dropped in most places. One explanation (using econometric modelling, often dubious) is a decrease in unwanted children after Roe v. Wade.
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on January 9, 2003 08:53 AMWill Allen wrote, To look at the death penalty apart from the entire criminal justice system is pointless. The proper goal of a criminal justice system is to protect the harmless from the predatory, and our current system does that less well than it should, for reasons unrelated to the death penalty, which means that the death penalty debate is a distraction from the more important goal, and ignores that it really isn't necessary to execute murderers to protect the public.
Right. More generally, I don't see any real interest in police departments and prosecutors' offices to manage things as "scientifically" as possible. Look at the screwup in the Central Park jogger case---they led the defendents into confessions, and as a result the real perp continued to commit violent crimes. How many police departments have established rigorous procedures for attempting to elicit truthful confessions? Sure, most confessions are probably legit. But do they have procedures in place?
Ditto for other things like recent work establishing there are methods for witnesses to try to ID defendents that reduce false positive rates without increasing false negative rates much. Are police departments tripping over themslves to look into this? Somehow I doubt it.
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on January 9, 2003 09:00 AMMr. Goldberg, I wish to commit us to nothing more extreme than the proposition that the first obligation of government is to protect the peaceful from those who choose to be predators. If this is harsh on the predators, well it just might be a good idea to choose not to engage in such behavior. My concern is for tens of thousands (no hyperbole involved) of mouldering corpses who would instead be productive citizens if their killers had been incarcerated for extremely long periods upon their first violent offense; I have very little concern for those who choose to commit violent offenses. We really criminalize far more behavior than we should, while being entirely too lax on those who engage in violent behavior.
Posted by: Will Allen on January 9, 2003 09:05 AMviolent crime has decreased around the country. So you have to "regress out" a national effect
NYC's crime drop exceeded that of the nation-as-a-whole, and other urban centers, by far.
Last I saw, NYC wasn't even in the top 150 SMSAs when ranked by various crime rates.
Rockefeller-era tough drug laws, the crack cocaine laws, a generation "scared straight" by the havoc of the crack epidemic, aggressive "smart" policing of things like turnstile jumping and loitering, all contributed.
And yes, I've seen it said that high abortion rates in certain cohorts cut the population of potential perps. But given the understandable sensitivity of this claim, I've not seen rigorous analysis of it.
Year end news accounts said the murder count on Manhattan Island (NY County, borough of Manhattan) was the lowest since the 19th century.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 9, 2003 09:08 AMthe screwup in the Central Park jogger case
This is overstated. The confessed and convicted perps were in the park that night attacking people - of that there is no dispute. They also each confessed and implicated each other in the attack on the girl, and in assisting someone (the ultimate perp) who actually raped her.
Justice was served. Public saftey was served, as violent perps were off the streets for a few years. One of them was already back in jail having been released at the end of his Park sentence!
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 9, 2003 09:14 AMAlong the same lines that Mr. Fromm writes of, I would favor greatly increasing funding for public defenders, for to lock up an innocent man for 25 years because he had an incompetent defense is inexcusable. Perfection is beyond the horizon, and always will be, but I simply propose that violence be taken seriously, whether it be the violence of the criminally predatory, or the violence of incarceration by the state. Again, this is the state's core function, so until that time it is said that the state is no longer using resources that have nothing to do with the state's unavoidable responsibilities,the argument that lack of resources prevents government from performing well it's basic function rings hollow.
Posted by: Will Allen on January 9, 2003 09:16 AMI get the distinct impression that few people truly realize the extent of the corruption to our legal institutions due to the stupid “war on drugs.” The civl rights of ordinary law abiding American citizens are often violated. Police commonly lie to get convictions and prosecutors simply look the other way. Many police officers also get to keep the expensive cars and other items taken away from drug dealers. Many municipal governments are thrilled by their drug war “profits.”
It is also senseless to advocate for better defense of criminals when the public defenders throughout the United States are compelled to waste so much time defending those arrested on minor drug charges. We can no longer afford allowing ultraconservative Protestants to impose their weird sense of morality on the rest of us. These people did enormous damage during the prohibition of alcohol in the early part of the twentieth Century. The rest of the American population must put a halt to their shenanigans as quickly as possible.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 9, 2003 09:41 AMHell, the drug warriors have accomplished the remarkable task of corrupting an entire hemisphere's governments. One of the problems of demanding the state to perform roles that it is ill-equipped to perform, or roles it cannot legitimately perform, is that it ends up not performing well in those roles that only it can do well or legitimately, while completely bungling what it could not do in the first place. The War on Drugs is a monument to stupidity, and drives much of what is wrong in the criminal justice system generally.
Posted by: Will Allen on January 9, 2003 09:54 AMDThomson: you are completely right.
How does everyone feel about "three strikes laws"?
Posted by: JT on January 9, 2003 09:57 AMSome people might be a bit stunned by my direct attack on conservative Protestants. I do this because of I am convinced that we will not get rid of these dumb drug laws until the nation enters into a serious dialogue concerning how they got enacted in the first place. This is no time to engage in political correctness. It’s fair to say that Catholics have badly goofed regarding their child molesting priests and that the ultra-Right Wing Protestants have caused enormous destruction because of their peculiar notions pertaining to mind altering drugs. Silence in this particular instance is not golden.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 9, 2003 10:03 AM“DThomson: you are completely right.
How does everyone feel about "three strikes laws"?”
I am hostile toward the “three strikes laws.” It should perhaps be a general rule, but not absolutely applied in all circumstances. These laws prevent judges and prosecutors from using their common sense. We do indeed have a problem with liberal judges who nonchalantly release convicted criminals who still pose a threat. However, the “three strikes” remedy is not the way to resolve this issue.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 9, 2003 10:37 AMThe stat of even 30 innocents released from death row implies a strong likelihood that innocents have actually been executed. Obviously we don't know how many. Execution of innocent people would foster disrespect of the justice system, which can't help the crime rate. Texas executes the most people, AND has the highest violent crime rate.
Plus there is the whole morality issue . . .
Posted by: Rich Phillips on January 9, 2003 11:43 AMHow does everyone feel about "three strikes laws"?”
These laws were enacted because judges so often let repeat offender/career criminals back on the streets, that the people, via their legislators, decided to hand-cuff the black robes.
So, how do *I* feel about th 3 strike laws? They allow one strike too many.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 9, 2003 02:09 PMBucky Dent wrote, NYC's crime drop exceeded that of the nation-as-a-whole, and other urban centers, by far.
Yeah? What are the numbers?
Public saftey was served Sure. The guy who actually committed the rape was not caught and went on to commit more violent crimes.
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on January 9, 2003 02:37 PMGeez. The data have been consistent and published for years. Don't have a source at my fingertips,
As for justice, the jailed wilding youths in addition to confessing and implicating one another, had physical scars, and mud and semen inside their underwear, all consistent with their original story, which, again, did NOT include any of them penetrating the victim, only holding her down. They had clearly been involved in violent mayhem that night, and the city's innocents were safer with them behind bars.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 9, 2003 02:58 PMI want to hear the logical link between "locking up drug users for an eternity" and "lower violent crime rates." If anything, when use users eventually do get out, they sure as hell aren't going to be able to get regular jobs.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 9, 2003 03:03 PMThis is an unpleasant reality, but there is nothing to do but weight the costs and the benefits.
Boy, I hope death penalty proponents start talking this way on television when innocent executions come up. Might make things easier.....
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 9, 2003 03:04 PMBoy, I hope death penalty proponents start talking this way on television when innocent executions come up. Might make things easier.....
It's also the only honest approach. Without taking a stand on the advisability of the death penalty as policy, I think Sullivan's position is the only one a death-penalty advocate can take. Support of the death penalty means supporting a system that will take innocent lives, so you have to accept that and show that the countervailing benefits outweigh the hazards.
In a sense, this is no different than designing a vehicle that will facilitate the death of some number of people -- think Ford Explorer rollovers. In another sense, you can argue that such a simile is entirely misleading. But, in either case, it must be confronted.
Posted by: Watchful Babbler on January 9, 2003 08:43 PMSupport of the death penalty means supporting a system that will take innocent lives...this is no different than designing a vehicle that will facilitate the death of some number of people -- think Ford Explorer rollovers...
Reflexive demonization of those who disagree with you, and using hyper-simplistic but currently hot political examples to make one's point, just make it easy for many people to roll their eyes and conclude death penalty opponents lack intellectual gravitas.
Mario Cuomo's career ended, in large part, because the people of the State of New York, essentially the same people who elected Schumer and Hillary to the Senate, rejected his actions to over-ride "the people" on this issue.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 10, 2003 05:11 AMNotwithstanding Dent's hysterics, Watchful Babbler is just stating the obvious, common-sense truth -- the death penalty, however carefully applied, is bound to lead to the execution of some innocents, so to justify it one has to establish that its benefits probably outweigh that fact.
But we are dealing here, are we not, with two separate issues? A huge number of people (including George Will) now agree that this country's criminal defense system for the indigent is atrociously inadequate and that a large number of innocent people have certainly been avoidably executed as a result, and argue that there should be a temporary moratorium on the death penalty until we correct this.
The question of whether it should be permanently abolished afterwards is separate -- and I'm one of those who has very serious doubts about doing so (for reasons of both justice and deterrence). Given the number of cases in which exonerating evidence has come in only years after sentencing, however, I do think there should always be a gap of about 10 years between sentencing and execution -- although no further delays in execution beyond that point should be allowed for any reason.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 10, 2003 08:20 AMDisagreement = hysterics?
And one obvious political tactic for death penalty opponents would be a "temporary" freeze on its use, banking on political inertia to ensure it is never lifted.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 10, 2003 10:10 AMObviously, a death penalty will result in some level of innocent executions; that wasn't my point. My point was that "well, you've got to kill a few innocent people to keep those damned criminals in line" is a hilariously ineffective argument on political grounds; people tend not to like callous tradeoffs of justice for hypothetical intimidation of murderers.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 10, 2003 01:17 PM>>Why do you think violent crime rates have collapsed here in NYC over the past decade?<<
>Yes, a lot of people have made reference to facts like this. Problem is that violent crime has decreased around the country. So you have to "regress out" a national effect before trumpeting the effects of a policy in one locale. <
Problem is, the NYC crime rate has dropped so much more than the rest of the country's that it has pulled down the entire national rate, so you have to "regress out" the NYC rate to see what's really going on nationwide. And nationwide crime in fact is going *up* now as NYC crime continues to go *down*, making NYC the safest city in the US:
E.g, recent local news report:
~~
New York's Crime Miracle
There's no shortage of bad news in and around City Hall these days. The budget is a mess...
But amid the gloom, there is good news.
Tremendous news, in fact, about one of the city's greatest assets: The crime rate continues to decline. Now, you've heard that before -- so often that, amazingly, your eyes probably glaze over. That's how accustomed we've become to historic decreases in crime....
That's astonishing, and it's a tribute to the groundbreaking work of Rudolph Giuliani and his police commissioners, and the wisdom of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his commissioner, Ray Kelly, in continuing the successful war on crime launched in the early 1990's.
Clearly, New York is doing something right, and other cities are not following suit. Nationwide statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show that murder was up by 2.5 percent in 2001, car theft by 5.7 percent and robberies by 3.7 percent.
In New York, however, the murder rate is down an amazing 12.7 percent this year, car theft is down 9.8 percent, and crime overall has dropped 5.3 percent.
Police officials say they're mystified. Yet with murders on the increase in Boston, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Chicago, the fact is that New York remains what it was during the height of the Giuliani years: the safest large city in the United States. It's a fantastic turn of events, and the NYPD deserves our congratulations.
http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6698
~~
>> I haven't heard any conclusive analysis of why crime rates have dropped in most places. <<
By some coincidence, crime started falling in NY just as the NYC police adopted new anti-crime techniques, during the Dinkins Administration actually. When they were seen to be paying off, they were intensified with a vengeance by Giuliani, notably with his feared "Computstat" management accountability system for police officials, which continues now -- embarrassing, demoting, and firing police commanders who do not achieve concrete crime reduction goals. (Imagine that!)
Also by coincidence, cities that have adopted NYC's techniques have had greater success at reducing crime than those that haven't.
Which points to a provocative possibility that many don't wish to deal with: That *quality of management* and *accountability for performance* when applied to government employees can actually greatly improve *quality of life* for the citizenry. (Don't mention this to the urban public schools! Or to municipal labor unions, or to the Democrats they bankroll. There has just *got* to be some *other* credible explanation.)
>> One explanation (using econometric modeling, often dubious) is a decrease in unwanted children after Roe v. Wade.<<
Yes, abortion as a positive social good, of course. ;-) [Much better than executing convicted murderers, no doubt -- after all, only *some* of the convicted murderers might be innocent.]
But do the modelers explain how Roe v Wade's effect is concentrated in NYC?
>>"... The researchers said a statistical formula suggested that each execution saved the lives of 18 potential victims."
This sounds suspiciously like John Lott's flawed econometric analysis behind the claim that allowing more citizens to carry concealed weapons decreases certain crimes.<<
It sounds especially suspect in an economics forum, where people are intuitively skeptical of the idea that increasing the expected cost of an action will decrease the frequency of the action.
"Support of the death penalty means supporting a system that will take innocent lives...this is no different than designing a vehicle that will facilitate the death of some number of people -- think Ford Explorer rollovers..."
"Reflexive demonization of those who disagree with you, and using hyper-simplistic but currently hot political examples to make one's point, just make it easy for many people to roll their eyes and conclude death penalty opponents lack intellectual gravitas."
Yes, Bucky, interpreting the first statement as "reflexive demonization" is hysterics, not just "disagreement". As for the possibility of a justifiable temporary moratorium turning into a less justifiable permanent ban because of "political inertia": you could use that argument to justify avoiding ANY temporary moratorium on anything, no matter how justified. It's very strange that you think the current "political inertia" in favor of retaining the death penalty can be overriden, but that such inertia in favor of keeping it banned would for some mysterious reason be harder to overcome. It also indicates remarkably little faith in the democratic process.
It also indicates remarkably little faith in the democratic process.
So, like me, you were happy with the way the 2000 presidential election was resolved?
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 11, 2003 06:29 AMpeople tend not to like callous tradeoffs of justice for hypothetical intimidation of murderers.
Odd, then, than public opinion polling data is pretty consistent in support of capital punishment.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 11, 2003 06:32 AMDent: "So, like me, you were happy with the way the 2000 presidential election was resolved?"
Not at all, Buck -- but my grudge wasn't against the idea of democracy; it was against the Electoral College, which (MAYBE with some help from the US Supreme Court) declared the loser of that election by 500,000 votes to be the "winner". Which, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with your peculiar belief that the American people, for some mysterious reason, will be freer to eliminate the death penalty than they will be to reinstate it later.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 11, 2003 11:26 AMPostscript: the same polls that show Americans solidly in favor of the death penalty also show a very strong level of concern that it should NOT be applied avoidably to innocent people. For instance, about 93% of Americans favor requiring mandatory consideration of DNA evidence in every case where the death penalty might apply (including reviewing it whenever it's available for already-convicted people).
Similarly, there's MUCH more support for a temporary moratorium on the death penalty until possible malfunctions in the current system of justice are corrected -- and, for that matter, much more support for abolishing it flat-out if mandatory life imprisonment without parole is available as an alternative (which, by the way, is farther than I myself am willing to go). In both those cases, the American public is currently split around 50-50.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 11, 2003 11:33 AMIt sounds especially suspect in an economics forum, where people are intuitively skeptical of the idea that increasing the expected cost of an action will decrease the frequency of the action.
The problem with "executions decrease crime" is that the mechanism has three parts:
The criminal's chance of getting caught.
The criminal's chance of getting convicted.
The punishment the criminal gets after conviction.
The stuff I've seen shows that criminals think, mostly correctly, that their chance of being caught & convicted in any given crime is extremely low. This effect is so large that it washes out the deterrence effects of post-conviction punishment; giving people a bazillion years doesn't do much to the crime rate if you only *find them* one-third to one-half of the time.
However, increasing the rate you catch 'em at *really* has an effect. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that the police reforms of the 90s in NYC are what caused crime to drop so much; they increased their effectiveness. Well, that and the end of the crack epidemic.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 11, 2003 03:10 PMYou accuse me of ...remarkably little faith in the democratic process. But when I point out the 2000 election fiasco, you backpedal thus: my grudge wasn't against the idea of democracy; it was against the Electoral College
Democracy is more than a term going back to the ancient Greeks. It is a PROCESS whereby societies garner opinions from the governed and attempt to implelement them.
I have great faith in democracy. Just not much in our "process" for realizing its goals.
Posted by: on January 11, 2003 06:30 PMIf you mean that the process is faulty in the case of the Electoral College, you are, of course, right. Now exactly what mechanism in the American political system is biased against the death penalty?
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 11, 2003 06:59 PMThe political system we have is notoriously inefficient at translating specific popular intentions into law. My point was a generalized observation that included but was not limited to, the dealth penalty issue.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 12, 2003 08:32 AMBut that phenomenon works BOTH ways -- you apparently can't provide any reason to think that the American political system would be any more sluggish about reinstating the death penalty later on in accord with the public's desire than it would be sluggish in establishing a temporary moratorium on it right now in accord with the public's desire.
And let's keep one very big fact in mind: the number of innocent people being executed by the US legal system as it currently stands is NOT small. Governor Ryan took the drastic step of shutting down the death penalty system completely in Illinois (for now) ONLY because the number of people on Death Row who were officially exonerated had actually exceeded the number executed. That indicates that the US legal system right now is malfunctioning very seriously -- and that, even if you (like me) are not opposed to the death penalty in general, we badly need to shut it down until we get those large -- and correctible -- flaws in the legal system corrected. (Keep in mind also that every time an innocent is executed, it means that the actual murderer is still running around free as a bird -- with the cops no longer looking for him. This kind of corruption and incompetence in the legal system is not only unjust; it works against reducing the crime rate.)
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 12, 2003 09:27 PMyou apparently can't provide any reason to think that the American political system would be any more sluggish about reinstating the death penalty later on in accord with the public's desire than it would be sluggish in establishing a temporary moratorium on it right now in accord with the public's desire.
Of course I can't "provide any reason the think" the future will unfold in precise lockstep with a spot forecast.
Lord, this is as waste of time.
Posted by: Bucky Dent on January 13, 2003 04:46 AM