With the Scott Peterson trial in the news
as a death penalty verdict was recently announced, the death penalty
debates have again heated up. Those in favor of the death penalty argue
that it is a fair way of punishing those who have done wrong, and/or
that it can deter potential criminals from committing crimes. Those
against the death penalty may cite the reasons that it is not human
beings' right to decide that others should die, and/or that the fact
that some innocent people are killed is not an acceptable consequence
for the punishing of those who are guilty.
The table to the right is sorted by descending crime rate, and indicates
what each state's death penalty policy is. Several states, while still
having a death penalty on the books, have stopped executing people since
1976. Let's analyze the numbers:
Average crime rate of states with
an active death penalty: 4375.86 crimes per 100,000 people.
Average crime rate of states with no
active death penalty: 3259.15 crimes per 100,000 people.
Conclusion: States with an active death penalty have crime rates
more than 33% higher than the states with no active death penalty.
The caveat here is that, as usual, of which came first, the chicken or
the egg? While it is indisputable that the states with active death
penalties have the most crime, the argument could be suggested
that the reason the death penalty is in place is to address this high
rate of crime.
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