Death penalty Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Death punishment - Research Paper ExampleIn response to the financial statement that jacket punishment deters crime, opp unmatchednts point to a substantial body of research that suggests otherwise. Prior to Ehrlichs work and the accompanying application of econometric methods to the question of deterrence, few criminologists believed that there was strong evidence to support this argument. Recent surveys of criminologists take up found that they still overwhelmingly believe that capital punishment does not deter crime in 2009, a study of leading American criminologists found that 88 percent thought the death penalisation was not a deterrent. Critics point out that a large number of studies on the topic perk up found no deterrent effect, and that the attitudes of criminologists reflect this evidence. Sellins work on the deterrent effect in 1959 was one of the first primary studies that comp ard states with similar populations and crime rate, and found that those with the death penalty had, on average, no evidential decreases in homicide rates. This work was followed by dozens of published studies that compared states with or without the death penalty, and notably after 1972, compared homicide rates before and after the halting of executions within detail states, and concluded there was little deterrent effect. branch in the 1970s, there has also been a substantial body of work that has focussed more extensively on rebutting the methodologies and findings of Ehrlich and later econometricians. In response to Ehrlichs findings, the National Academy of Sciences appointed a panel of experts to check out his work and concluded in 1978 that his methodology was flawed, and his conclusions were not sustainable. Critics have pointed out that his findings were largely dependent upon the specific variables he chose to include in his studies, as well as the specific time frames he focused on, and even minor changes to these inputs and parameters have resulted in r adically different outcomes. More recently, the work of Jeffery Fagan and several colleagues has demonstrate that the use of econometric methods by researchers who have found a link between executions and deterrence are equally susceptible to large variances through small changes to variables or time frames. Aside from the argument that capital punishment does not deter crime, critics also argue that the death penalty does not in circumstance result in increased justice for either victims or society. Many critics are opposed to the subject of retribution on moral or religious grounds, and argue that for a variety of reasons, the death penalty constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendments