AS THE 1,000th EXECUTION NEARS,
PUBLIC SHOULD FOCUS ON THE VICTIMS
In a statement released today, the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation said that as America prepares to execute its 1,000th
murderer since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, more attention
should be paid to the people who have been murdered over that past 28
years.
“Since 1977, criminals have murdered over 558,000 innocent Americans.
On the occasion of the execution of the 1,000th murderer, many may wonder
how many innocent lives might have been saved if the death penalty were
enforced more often and the review of death penalty cases took less
time,” said Foundation President Michael Rushford.
Citing several recent studies which found that enforcing the death
penalty deters between 5 and 18 murders per execution, the Foundation
pointed out that the nation’s homicide rate has dropped over 37%
since the death penalty was reinstated. “Just as they do for other
types of crime, the consequences a murderer faces for taking an innocent
life has an influence on how many people are willing to commit murder,”
said Rushford. “This is hardly the time for us to feel sorry for
the killers,” he added.
CJLF President Michael Rushford is available for comment at (916)
446-0345.
The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation helped win seven United States
Supreme Court decisions benefitting law enforcement and public safety
over the Court’s 2004/05 term.
According to the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 558,770 homicides occurred in the US between 1977 and 2004.
Recent studies indicating deterrence of capital punishment:
Joanna M. Shepherd, Clemson University
Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital
Punishment
Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 283-322 (June 2004)
http://people.clemson.edu/~jshephe/DPpaper_fin.pdf
Paul R. Zimmerman
State Executions, Deterrence and the Incidence of Murder
Journal of Applied Economics, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 163-193 (May 2004)
http://www.cema.edu.ar/publicaciones/download/volumen7/zimmerman.pdf
Zhiqiang Liu
Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Hypothesis: Some New Insights
and Empirical Evidence
Eastern Economic Journal, vol. 30, iss. 2, p. 237 (Spring 2004)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=352681
H. Naci Mocan & R. Kaj Gittings
Getting Off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of
Capital Punishment
Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 453-478 (October 2003)
http://econ.cudenver.edu/mocan/papers/GettingOffDeathRow.pdf
Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, & Joanna M. Shepherd
Department of Economics, Emory University
Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium
Panel Data
American Law & Economics Review, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 344-376 (Fall
2003)
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DezRubShepDeterFinal.pdf
James A. Yunker, Western Illinois University
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/issue.asp?ref=0038-4941&vid=82&iid=2&oc=&s=&site=1
A New Statistical Analysis of Capital Punishment Incorporating U.S.
Postmoratorium Data
Social Science Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 297-311 (2002)
Dale O. Cloninger & Roberto Marchesini
University of Houston --Clear Lake
Execution and Deterrence: A Quasicontrolled Group Experiment
Applied Economics, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 569-576 (2001)
http://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v33y2001i5p569-76.html
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