Why Capital Punishment Doesn't Deter Crime

Those in favor of capital punishment believe that the threat of severe punishment should bring the crime rates down and that capital punishment or the death penalty is the ultimate crime deterrent. However because the likelihood of actually getting caught for committing a crime is very low, capital punishment doesn’t do much in the way of deterring people from engaging in criminal activity. Executions of convicted criminals do nothing to deter crime. The underlying reason of this ineffectiveness of capital punishment may be due to a lack of several elements that make capital punishment effective.

In the early days of America during the late 1700’s and throughout the 1800’s capital punishment was very effective. Why? Well, in part, due to four elements involved in making it effective – public, swift, certain, and severe. Those that came before us established capital punishment with these elements in mind. Offenders convicted of any crime received swift, certain, severe punishment, and a public one after a trial. Yes, the types of capital punishment may have been brutal – hanging, firing squad, etc. but they were effective. 

Public executions were the norm to make sure others got the message, but they were also swift. There were no laundry list of appeals that convicted criminals had available to them. No one sat on death row for 20 or 30 years before they had a date with the executioner. This maybe the main reason why capital punishment is not effective because it is not swift, if one will actually live another 20 or 30 years then where’s the concern or likelihood of being executed immediately or seeing an early death, unless they are killed in prison. Some people are not very knowledgeable about the criminal justice system and don’t even realize that a convicted murderer may go on living longer than their victim’s life lasted.