An Eye for an Eye

During one of my infrequent perusals of the news, I stumbled across this article about the apparent deterrent effect of capital punishment.

The research seems to be indicating that executions do in fact have a tangible effect on deterring people from killing each other. However, the depth that this article goes into the studies themselves is pretty minimal, so I'm not about to use it to weigh a debate that I haven't quite sorted out in my own mind. At the very least, the research seems to operate on a "rational actor" type of analysis in which people will act well ... rationally. Anyone with half a brain knows that people are hardly rational and killing someone (and not killing someone) are often not rational at all. Obviously, no one would commit murder if they thought they were going to get caught.

Regardless, I would venture that it's highly unlikely that hastening and increasing executions is going to to put an end to homicides and violent crimes. I learned from my Sociology 5 methods course about a thing called a spurious relationship. Not to overstate the obvious, but it seems that there may be myriad other factors that could contribute to fluctuations in homicide rates. An interesting theory in Steven Levitt's "Freakonomics"—a great book that I highly recommend, especially if you are of the Malcolm Gladwell "Blink" and "Tipping Point" persuasion (even though the frequency with which they give each other kudos comes off as a little incestuous)—is that crime rates declined dramatically in the 'mid to late '80s and early '90s because of Roe v. Wade, which allowed women who inhabit a particular position in social space in which any children born to them have a higher likelihood of becoming criminal offenders to have abortions, thus decreasing the crime rate by decreasing the number of potential criminals. An interesting theory, one that I'm not entirely sure I buy. But I suppose my point in bringing it up is that it can't be as simple as more executions mean less murders. Nothing in life is ever that simple.