Unlike the ICCP's...

[Yonivore]

...single study consensus on global war...er, global climate change, here we have several (over a dozen, I believe) scientific studies, conducted independently of one another, that have reached a single conclusion:

THE DEATH PENALTY DETERS MURDER

And, the faster you execute 'em the more murders that are deterred.

Studies Say Death Penalty Deters Crime (http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3263838)


"The results are robust, they don't really go away," he said. "I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) what am I going to do, hide them?"


"If it's the case that executing murderers prevents the execution of innocents by murderers, then the moral evaluation is not simple," he told The Associated Press. "Abolitionists or others, like me, who are skeptical about the death penalty haven't given adequate consideration to the possibility that innocent life is saved by the death penalty."


Several authors of the pro-deterrent reports said they welcome criticism in the interests of science, but said their work is being attacked by opponents of capital punishment for their findings, not their flaws.

"Instead of people sitting down and saying 'let's see what the data shows,' it's people sitting down and saying 'let's show this is wrong,'" said Paul Rubin, an economist and co-author of an Emory University study. "Some scientists are out seeking the truth, and some of them have a position they would like to defend."
Something I expect to happen in here.

[xrayzebra]

Yoni, think maybe the British could learn something from all this.
The following news story about a family that, I would guess, hasn't fully assimilated into the British culture.

Father guilty of daughter's 'honour killing'
By PA
Published: 11 June 2007

A father was found guilty today of murdering his 20-year-old daughter because she fell in love with the wrong man.

Banaz Mahmod was strangled in a so-called "honour" killing and buried in a suitcase in a back garden.

Her father Mahmod Mahmod and his brother Ari Mahmod ordered the murder because they believed she had shamed the family.

Banaz told police four times that she feared they wanted to kill her, even writing a letter naming those she thought would do it - one of whom later admitted his part in the killing and two who fled the country.

On another occasion her fears were dismissed by a female police officer who thought she had made up the story to get her boyfriend's attention.

She is one of a number of officers now facing an internal disciplinary investigation over the handling of the case.

Today Mahmod, 52, and Ari, 51, both from Mitcham, south London, were found guilty of Banaz's murder following a trial lasting nearly three months.

Banaz had helped convict them from beyond the grave with a video message played to jurors in which she told how she feared she was going to die.

She recorded the footage, in which she said she was "really scared", following an earlier attempt by her father to kill her on New Year's Eve 2005.

Banaz fled but later went back to her family and tried to carry on her relationship with boyfriend Rahmat Sulemani in secret.

But when they were discovered and Rahmat was threatened by Ari's associates, she contacted police again.

Banaz was urged to stay at a safe house but told officers she believed she would be all right at home because her mother was there.

The following day, on January 24, she disappeared. Her decomposed body was discovered in Handsworth, Birmingham, three months later.

Mohamad Hama, 30, of West Norwood, south London, an associate of Ari, has already pleaded guilty to the murder.

Darbaz Maref-Rasull, 24, of Hounslow, west London, was cleared, with Ari, of conspiracy to pervert justice.

Pshtewan Hama, 26, also of Hounslow, has already pleaded guilty on the same count.

Link:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2644139.ece

[ChumpDumper]

"We just don't have enough data to say anything," said Justin Wolfers, an economist at the Wharton School of Business who last year co-authored a sweeping critique of several studies, and said they were "flimsy" and appeared in "second-tier journals."

"This isn't left vs. right. This is a nerdy statistician saying it's too hard to tell," Wolfers said. "Within the advocacy community and legal scholars who are not as statistically adept, they will tell you it's still an open question. Among the small number of economists at leading universities whose bread and butter is statistical analysis, the argument is finished."Pet theories are fun when you try to apply them to everything though. Gotta publish something to keep your job.

[Yonivore]

"We just don't have enough data to say anything," said Justin Wolfers, an economist at the Wharton School of Business who last year co-authored a sweeping critique of several studies, and said they were "flimsy" and appeared in "second-tier journals."
"...sweeping critique of several studies..." doesn't mean all dozen and doesn't explain how the ones he critiqued were "flimsy." Appearing in "second-tier journals," could be a matter of his characterization or could be that "first-tier journals" are agenda driven and closed to such antithetical conclusions.

I don't see where he cited any studies that contradict the conclusion drawn in the twelve mentioned in the article.


"This isn't left vs. right. This is a nerdy statistician saying it's too hard to tell," Wolfers said. "Within the advocacy community and legal scholars who are not as statistically adept, they will tell you it's still an open question. Among the small number of economists at leading universities whose bread and butter is statistical analysis, the argument is finished."
I'm not sure I see this statement as being all that damning for the studies.

That advocacy groups and intelligencia believe it is an open question doesn't surprise me. That twelve separate and independent studies have concluded it to be true is pretty convincing.

Maybe the legal scholars and advocates should take some statistics courses.

Hell, the left is satisfied with mere consensus when it comes to climate guesses but, when you have a body of works the authors say conclusively proves something, you're ready to fight it tooth and nail.

As I pointed out in my original post, it's being attacked for its findings and not its flaws.

[ChumpDumper]

"...sweeping critique of several studies..." doesn't mean all dozen and doesn't explain how the ones he critiqued were "flimsy." Appearing in "second-tier journals," could be a matter of his characterization or could be that "first-tier journals" are agenda driven and closed to such antithetical conclusions.

I don't see where he cited any studies that contradict the conclusion drawn in the twelve mentioned in the article.I see where he said there wasn't enough data.
I'm not sure I see this statement as being all that damning for the studies.It's a nerdy statistician saying it's too hard to tell.
As I pointed out in my original post, it's being attacked for its findings and not its flaws.It's being attacked for both, but you've already made up your mind.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

ROFL

"ICCPs single study consensus?" Dude you're such a moron its not even funny. Although I guess it is still funny because it made me laugh. ehhh

[UV Ray]

Among the conclusions:

Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

In 2005, there were 16,692 cases of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter nationally. There were 60 executions.

The studies' conclusions drew a philosophical response from a well-known liberal law professor, University of Chicago's Cass Sunstein. A critic of the death penalty, in 2005 he co-authored a paper titled "Is capital punishment morally required?"

I suppose the logical question might eventually become: Would you be in favor of the death penalty if you could reduce homicide in the U.S. to one or two a year by executing the convicted immediately, without appeal and feet first through a wood chipper?

[PixelPusher]

I suppose the logical question might eventually become: Would you be in favor of the death penalty if you could reduce homicide in the U.S. to one or two a year by executing the convicted immediately, without appeal and feet first through a wood chipper?
And how many of those potential murder victims lives saved would be nullified by the lives lost, due to the increase in wrongful executions?

[UV Ray]

And how many of those potential murder victims lives saved would be nullified by the lives lost, due to the increase in wrongful executions?

It was sarcasm.

[PixelPusher]

It was sarcasm.
I was attempting to add to you comment, not challenge it. Sorry for the confusion.

[UV Ray]

I was attempting to add to you comment, not challenge it. Sorry for the confusion.
NP

[Yonivore]

I suppose the logical question might eventually become: Would you be in favor of the death penalty if you could reduce homicide in the U.S. to one or two a year by executing the convicted immediately, without appeal and feet first through a wood chipper?
Logical...wood chipper?

[UV Ray]

Logical...wood chipper?

might, eventually

Sarcasm...begging the real question which is: When do acts of moral justification become cruel/unusual?

[Yonivore]

might, eventually

Sarcasm...begging the real question which is: When do acts of moral justification become cruel/unusual?
First of all, no one is suggesting the manner of execution be changed; so, that's an entirely different argument. One worthy of discussion but, not germain to this thread.

[UV Ray]

First of all, no one is suggesting the manner of execution be changed; so, that's an entirely different argument. One worthy of discussion but, not germane to this thread.

My response was oriented with Sunstein's position, which I find relevant.


The studies' conclusions drew a philosophical response from a well-known liberal law professor, University of Chicago's Cass Sunstein. A critic of the death penalty, in 2005 he co-authored a paper titled "Is capital punishment morally required?"

[Yonivore]

My response was oriented with Sunstein's position, which I find relevant.
I think the answer is yes...in certain cases, it is morally required.

[UV Ray]

I think the answer is yes...in certain cases, it is morally required.

...which makes you left of Attila the Hun.

[Yonivore]

...which makes you left of Attila the Hun.
If a murderer is adjudged, at trial, to be a continuing threat to society, it is -- I believe -- a moral imperative to eliminate that threat.

The only ways, short of execution, to eliminate that threat have all been found to be cruel and unusual.

What would you propose?

[UV Ray]

If a murderer is adjudged, at trial, to be a continuing threat to society, it is -- I believe -- a moral imperative to eliminate that threat.

The only ways, short of execution, to eliminate that threat have all been found to be cruel and unusual.

What would you propose?
As suggested in my original post, I think it is a slippery slope we tread when government considers CP a moral obligation. If death penalty opponents, of which I am one, continue to make their argument based on the CP’s lack of deterrence and these new studies become accepted as irrefutable, then the abolitionist movement is in deep trouble.


From Sunstein’s paper:

The moral and legal commentary on capital punishment ought to be sensitive to
any significant revision in what we know. Life-life tradeoffs are inescapably involved. In
light of recent evidence, a government that settles upon a package of crime-control
policies that does not include capital punishment might well seem, at least prima facie, to
be both violating the rights and reducing the welfare of its citizens—just as would a state
that failed to enact simple environmental measures promising to save a great many lives.
The most common basis for resisting this conclusion, and our principal target
here, is some version of the distinction between acts and omissions. Opponents of capital
punishment frequently appeal to an intuition that intentional killing by the government
and its agents is morally objectionable in a way that simply allowing private killings is
not. Whatever the general merits of the distinction between acts and omissions in the
moral theory of individual conduct, we think it gets little purchase on questions of
governmental policy. Government cannot help but act in ways that affect the actions of
citizens; where citizens decide whether or not to kill each other in light of government’s
policies, it is not clear even as a conceptual matter what it would mean for government
not to act. For government to adopt a mix of criminal-justice policies that happens not to include capital punishment is not an “omission” or a “failure to act” in any meaningful sense. Likewise, deontological injunctions against unjustified killing, which we have not questioned here, are of little help in these settings. Unjustified killing is exactly what capital punishment prevents.

If this argument is correct, it has broad implications, some of which may not be
welcomed by advocates of capital punishment. Government engages in countless
omissions, many of which threaten people’s health and safety; consider the failure to
reduce highway fatalities, to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, to prevent domestic
violence, to impose further controls on private uses of guns, even to redistribute wealth to
those who most need it. Suppose that it is not sensible, in these and other contexts, to
characterize government omissions as such, or suppose that even if the characterization is
sensible, it lacks moral relevance. If so, then government might well be compelled, on
one or another ground, to take steps to protect people against statistical risks, even if those steps impose costs and harms; much will depend on what the facts show.103

99 See Richard O. Lempert, Desert and Deterrence: An Assessment of the Moral Bases of the Case for
Capital Punishment, 79 Mich. L. Rev. 1177, 1222 (1981).
100 See id. at 1193 – 94.
101 See id. at 1192 – 93.
102 See id. at 1224.
45

[Yonivore]

As suggested in my original post, I think it is a slippery slope we tread when government considers CP a moral obligation.
Why is stealing a crime?

I'm sorry, morality and law are inextricably joined.

I think our government has a constitutional obligation -- based in morality -- to protect us from threats than can be identified and prevented. A murderer that is adjudged to be guilty and a continuing threat to society should be executed.

Keep in mind, I consider prison guards and other inmates parts of society that need protecting as well.


If death penalty opponents, of which I am one, continue to make their argument based on the CP’s lack of deterrence and these new studies become accepted as irrefutable, then the abolitionist movement is in deep trouble.
I think the abolitionist movement is in deep trouble.

[UV Ray]

Why is stealing a crime?

I'm sorry, morality and law are inextricably joined.

I think our government has a constitutional obligation -- based in morality -- to protect us from threats than can be identified and prevented. A murderer that is adjudged to be guilty and a continuing threat to society should be executed.

Keep in mind, I consider prison guards and other inmates parts of society that need protecting as well.


I think the abolitionist movement is in deep trouble.

I agree that morality and law are joined in some ways i.e., JC ethic derivation, but they are not the same. And I am not qualified to argue that.

I see that you added prison guards and inmates as needing protection. I assume you added this to clarify your earlier post.

I think opponents of the death penalty will be in trouble even in countries and states where CP was previously repealed.