Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment:
Its Pros, Cons, and Effectiveness Within the United States

I. Introduction

This study looks to explore how capital punishment has had a positive or negative affect on our justice system. Some states enforce capital punishment within their state lines, and some do not. However, the states that do enforce it hardly ever do so, only in some rare instances. Crimes rates in the states vary with some being high and others remaining at a steady rate. Its no question that the death penalty does have a major impact when it is enforced, but our ethics in the United States, and in our citizen’s minds, chooses to lean towards the life sentence path. Some believe the death penalty does play a relevant part in our justice system because it allows closure for the victim’s families, and saves money by not having to provide care for the prisoner in jail. With the use of capital punishment, we could possibly reduce crimes rates, and deter crime in the states that enforce it, but at what cost would it be to us? The aim is to look at how attitudes towards the death penalty vary in New Mexico, and see if crime has been deterred by capital punishment, how cost effective it is to us, and if its possible that with the use of capital punishment we may kill an innocent victim?
II/III. Background/Research Problem Increasing the rate we convict homicide or other crimes with the death penalty we can possibly reduce the crime rates. However with this idea, rushing into the death penalty for an answer may result in killing innocent victims. Life sentencing is the usual option but may result in high criminal rates because no fear of death penalty. Now with that in mind, much research has been conducted with killing of innocent victims.Past research has looked into what the death penalty has done for us and according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University, each execution deters approximately 18 murders (Associated Press 2007). Now in this case, only harsh homicide crimes are the only times when capital punishment is called on. Other crimes usually result in long sentences with no chance of parole or bail. The problem is that not everyone believes we should execute a person based on the crime they committed, because of our ethics or religions in today’s world; it prevents us from supporting the execution of another. Some believe that an eye for an eye is not the way to solve our problems. However, many argue that there is no true evidence that the death penalty deters crime. From John Donahue (Donahue 2006) he argues that: “The death penalty is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. The existing evidence for deterrence is surprisingly fragile.”

So the ongoing debate continues with the idea of the death penalty providing this false fear for criminals and the crime rates continue to rise regardless of the death penalty. However, he mentions that since it is applied so rarely, criminals have nothing to fear. Whereas the opposite argue that if we did apply it steadfast then we could possibly execute an innocent person. “A total of 69 people have been released from death row since 1973 after evidence of their innocence emerged (Dieter 1997).” The ongoing process of putting more people on death row continues in today’s world and with the defense lawyers looking to attain plea bargains or quick ways out for their defendant, its hard for someone to avoid death row with such poor legal representation. The focus of the proposal is to identify the pros and cons of the death penalty and show the statistics of each side without any bias towards either idea. The research is intended to inform the reader of what the death penalty can do or what it has already done in the states that choose to enforce it or already have. Much research has been done on capital punishment but this idea continues to grow and grow each day that it is difficult to get an absolute lock on what actual homicide rates are and which actually go to trial. Many can go unreported thus leading to smaller crime rates. The more research the better, even with secondary research behind each idea, each new researcher can gain new insight every time crime rates and new data is presented.
V. Methods

Data for the study would be collected using a mixed methods approach. First we would like to evaluate the opinions on a National scale if people in the US overall favored or opposed the death penalty. For this we would use secondary data from the General Social Survey (GSS). The GSS would provide a large random sample of the national population. The survey is conducted of non-institutionalized; English speaking people in the U.S. and contains questions pertaining to behaviors, attitudes and some special interest with many of the same core questions since 1972. We would want to focus on the response of whether the respondent favored for opposed the death penalty for someone that was convicted of murder. Of course this allows for only one or the other option without there being room for alternatives such as life in prison. After receiving the national average, we would then focus on the New Mexican populations and their attitudes on the death penalty. Once we have constructed a comprehensive survey to determine attitudes towards; death penalty, the cost associated for imprisonment, the percentage of time the death penalty is carried out in the state and whether or not a person falsely sentenced to death row deserved retribution, we would conduct the surveys on the multiple populations outlined. We would need to conduct surveys of the general population in multiple counties within the state as well as on the reservations throughout the state. New Mexico encompasses many rural areas so we would use the states Census information from 2011 to get an understanding of the rural and city populations and make strata populations based on demographic questions. The demographics would focus on distance from town/city from nearest jail or prison, annual income per capita and ethnic origin. From the survey responses we would then move to quota sampling within each strata group to have a representative final sample to conduct our analysis of attitudes within our state. We would like to have a large sample and with the state population just over two million (2,082,224 in 2011); we hope for a return of at least 2000 surveys. For the general population we would do phone surveys since that tends to be one of the most efficient forms to receive a timely response from and mail surveys for rural area that may not have landlines. As it concerns the Native American population we would first have to receive permission from the Bureau of Indian Affairs before we can begin to conduct surveys. If granted, we would be able to receive mailing and contract information for tribal council, which could help us orchestrate executing the surveys on tribal land. To get a comprehensive understanding of whether or not violent crime is deterred by death penalty we would also look at the incarcerated persons within our state. For this we would use the New Mexico Corrections Department to obtain consent to interview a random sample of convicted felons in which their crime may yield capital punishment within the multiple state institutions. We would then conduct in-depth interviews with the representative sample to determine the decision to commit the crime and if they understood the consequences or if they were aware that the state did have death penalty as one of those consequences. The survey completed by the researcher and the felon would also have questions concerning retribution and cost of life imprisonment but would include open ended questions as well so that the researcher could gain insight to why the crime was still committed if the guilty party understood the consequences. In this qualitative research analysis we will reveal the attitudes towards capital punishment, if the cost or life in prison outweighs that or wrongfully killing an innocent person and determine if the death penalty deters violent crimes.
VI. Possible Outcomes
There have been numerous studies on capital punishment having a deterrent effect. A great majority have found that yes, capital punishment has a strong deterrent effect; each execution results, on average, in eighteen fewer murders (Dezhbakhsh, Rubin, Shepherd 2003). In New Mexico, a statewide poll in 2008 showed that 64% of New Mexicans supported replacing the death penalty with life without parole and restitution to victims’ families (Farrell, 2009). On March 13, 2009 the New Mexico Senate joined the House in voting to replace the state’s death penalty with the sentence of life without parole. Governor Bill Richardson signed the bill abolishing the death penalty in New Mexico on March 18, 2009. New Mexico became the 15th state to abandon capital punishment. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s uniform crime reports, crime rates in New Mexico have gone down since 2009 when the death penalty was repealed. The outcomes of this research will provide useful information to the state of New Mexico regarding the death penalty and its effects on the crime rate since it has been appealed. This research will provide findings for community leaders interested in understanding the influence the death penalty has as a deterrent on crime. There are many other possible outcomes that can be deducted from this research, one of which is the measure of money a death penalty trial would cost the state, that is now being put towards enhancing law enforcement, public works, etc. Thus, this research may provide momentum for further research on crime rates when the death penalty is repealed in a state.