No More Death Penalty in New Mexico

[DaShi]

I seriously hope that what Aeson said isn't the point that I made. Because if I have to explain it more than three times, I'll lose any respect that I may have for the posters involved.

For Aeson, thank you for liking my arguement but cost isn't the issue.

[MikeH]

Then you're an idiot. Because I wasn't the one who first brought up the issue of cost.

MikeH:

If it does maybe it's not worth the extra money

You:

Why use something that is costly and unproven?

****.

People make cost based decisions about human life every single day, whether it be how much safety equipment to put in a new train/car/building, what treatment is worth trying for which patients in a hospital or even what equipment to invest in. How much to spend on equipment for our troops. etc. etc. etc.

It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that you spend the money on a deterrent that you can more easily measure the effectiveness of rather than one that's unproven. eg. there's good evidence that fear of capture and prosecution is a much bigger deterrent than what the punishment is so you could argue that by spending the extra money investing in getting a great set of detectives and prosecutors you could prevent more murders, as well as catch more murderers.

[KrazyHorse]

And I've already explained that for reasonable valuations of human life and reasonable likelihood ratios of the results from relevant studies, justification can be made to use the death penalty.

Only if we arbitrarily choose to weight one side's evidence much more strongly than the other's on the issue of deterrence, or if we choose to assign a value for human life far, far below that which is generally used is it obvious that the DP is a bad idea.

And your silly assertion earlier that we know that the DP does not deter murder is simply wrong.

As for this:

It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that you spend the money on a deterrent that you can more easily measure the effectiveness of rather than one that's unproven. eg. there's good evidence that fear of capture and prosecution is a much bigger deterrent than what the punishment is

Can you please link me to a rigorous study of such evidence, along with a cost analysis and a related estimate of how many lives can be saved for a given price?

Thanks.

[MikeH]

I clarified that assertion.

I didn't say there was a study with cost benefit analysis, I said that something like that might be easier to measure. Certainty of Punishment vs Severity of Punishment is an area I find really interesting. Here's a pretty reasonable overview, including summaries and references to some of the major studies.

1. http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/bg148.pdf

Certainty of Punishment vs. Severity of Punishment. Scholars regularly
consider which provides the greater deterrent. One provocative study
involved prisoners and college students. When tested, both groups responded
in virtually identical terms. Prisoners could identify their financial self-interest
in an experimental setting as well as students could.22 However, in their
decision making, prisoners are much more sensitive to changes in certainty
than in severity of punishment. In terms of real-world application, the authors
of the study speculate that “long prison terms are likely to be more impressive
to lawmakers than lawbreakers.”23

Supporting evidence for this viewpoint comes from a National Academy
of Sciences panel which estimated that a 50 percent increase in the probability
of incarceration prevents about twice as much violent crime as a 50
percent increase in the average term of incarceration.24

THE DETERRENT EFFECT OF PERCEIVED CERTAINTY AND SEVERITY OF PUNISHMENT REVISITED*
STEVEN KLEPPER 1 DANIEL NAGIN 1
1 Carnegie Mellon University

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120003768/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

This paper synthesizes and extends recent criticisms of cross-sectional and panel studies of perceptual deterrence and then uses those criticisms to design a better cross-sectional study. A series of scenarios involving the noncompliance of a hypothetical plumber were posed to a sample of predominantly middle-aged administrators. The respondents were asked to estimate the probability that the noncompliance would be detected and, if detected, the probability that it would result in criminal prosecution. Respondents were also asked to project their own behavior if in the plumber's position. The results contrast sharply with prior findings, especially of the panel studies. Not only do perceptions of detection risk play an important role in deterring tax noncompliance, but fear of criminal prosecution appears to be a powerful deterrent.

Here's a study on CCTV in deterrence, one example of fear of capture. With some cost analysis.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors292.pdf

And I'm done.

The most important thing I said was ignored, the death penalty makes little baby Jesus cry.

[DinoDoc]

The most important thing I said was ignored, the death penalty makes little baby Jesus cry.

Have you read the Bible?