CHAPTER 2

Argument 9 (17)

The Death Penalty deters some people from committing heinous crimes and thereby human lives are saved

The question of deterrence is vital and serious. It means life or death for people. If the death penalty has a deterrent effect – which we mean it have – then it means that human lives will be saved.

Far from everyone will be deterred from committing heinous crimes because of the death penalty. Violent crimes or murders often happen when a man (it is almost always a man) is intoxicated by alcohol, or under the influence of drugs, or mentally ill, or in a furious rage beyond sanity. A person who is in one of these conditions rarely thinks of an eventual death penalty and ceases from continuing his act. And from the fanatical terrorist there is hardly a reason to expect any deterrent. A terrorist is often a person who is prepared to carry out his acts knowing that he is risking his own life. It can also be the case that the presumptive criminal is unaware of the fact that the crime he is planning would mean the death penalty if he was arrested and convicted.

But still it is obvious that the death penalty is a deterrent instrument. No one should have to doubt that. We can easily spread some light over this by a few examples:

a) There are a number of criminals with sharp brains who carefully plan their violent crimes or murders. When they in cold blood consider their crimes it is reasonable to assume that some cancel their plans when they see that they could be suspects and that they thereby risk the death penalty.

b) A fight breaks out between two sober men in a crowd and one pull out a knife with the intent to kill but at the same time becomes aware of the death penalty. The man with the knife decides that it is not worth risking one’s life for this thing but choose to run away from the situation.

c) A man plans to take his old mother’s life in order to get his inheritance, but stops himself when he realizes that the risk of discovery is to great and thereby also the risk of the death penalty.

d) A man plans to kill his wife in order to marry his mistress. The fear of discovery and being sentenced to death stops him from pursuing his murder plans.

We can give these comments to these four examples:

Easily we can imagine thousands of similar and fully realistic situations where people can be thought to avoid violent crimes by fear of the death penalty.

In countries that use the death penalty we know who have not been deterred, i.e. those who have committed violent crimes which according to the law leads to the death penalty. But no one knows who or how many have been deterred. No statistic will be able to show all those who have avoided crime because of the fear of the death penalty. They will always live undetected. Only common sense and good judgment tells us that these "invisible ones" who rather live than risk death by committing heinous crimes live among us.

What these four examples have in common is that if these people instead figure on the risk of being sentenced to prison they may feel that the crime is worth taking the risk. The deterrent effect with such a sanction is considerably smaller.

When it comes to the question of deterrent, the first decision we have to make is: Do we think it is possible for people to keep from committing a certain criminal act because of fear of death if they are arrested?

And we can also reflect on this: For instance, if a sober driver who is in a great hurry driving 100 km/h on a road where the limit is 50 km/h and he sees a sharp turn up ahead, is it then possible that he becomes so mortal terrified that he slows down?

And if a sober and normal man plans to commit an act of violence against another person but becomes aware that it can lead to his arrest and to death penalty, can it happen that he becomes so scared that he drops the matter?

How we ourselves feel about the question of crime vs. deterrence is easily detected by a few situation descriptions. Here are three examples:

a) What if you were in a store and felt tempted to steal a bar of chocolate and at the same time know that if you got caught it would mean a police report or possibly a $50 fine.

b) What if you were in the same situation and knew that the penalty would be one month in prison and a $500 fine.

Would you, in any situation become so frightened, so deterred, that you would relinquish from proceeding?

a) What if you were planning to beat up a guy because he make a pass on your girlfriend a while back, but at the same time you knew that if you got caught it would, at the most, lead to a one month prison term.

b) What if you were in the same situation, but at the same time knew that you would spend at least five years in prison and have to pay a $5000 fine if you were caught.

Would you, in any situation become so frightened, so deterred, that you would relinquish from proceeding?

a) What if you were a parent who found out that a man had molested your 7-year old daughter. You therefore began to plan to kill him. During the course of planning you became aware of the fact that if you were caught it would mean a prison term of 7-18 years.

b) What if you were in the same situation but became aware of that it would mean the death penalty if you were caught.

Would you, in any situation become so frightened, so deterred, that you would relinquish from proceeding?

If both the "a)" and the "b)" alternatives feel deterrence, which alternative would be the most deterrent in these three examples?

If the answers could be displayed it would be likely to confirm our conclusion that in the cases where we humans can make a choice, most would chose to relinquish from committing a criminal act if there is a harsh punishment, and even more so if there is a threat of death. We are therefore convinced that there are many people who, under certain circumstances, can become so frightened of death that they avoid committing cruel acts of violence.

It is also a common experience in the world that people avoid situations that mean a concrete danger to one’s life. It would therefore be strange if the death penalty was the only exception where people did not react with strong fear – deterrence.

If there only are a few people like that, who become frightened, deterred, and therefore draw back from their evil schemes, then the death penalty also for that reason becomes a benefit for the society.

On the other hand it is also so that if a country does not use the death penalty consistently (as in the USA) it limits the "deterrent effect" considerably.

The conclusion is that common sense, good judgment, the human experience and logical thinking tells us that it is obvious that the sentencing of the death penalty has the strongest deterrent effect on most presumptive criminals.

And even if it was only one of hundreds of criminals that were deterred – we believe that there are more – from committing a planned act of violence or murder only because of the death penalty (and not any other punishment), then also is deterrence a strong argument for the death penalty.

It is often said that the fear of discovery at the scene of a crime is maybe the most important thing to take hold of when it comes to the purpose of preventing crime. But it is only partly correct. The determining fact is what penalty the discovery has. If discovery and arrest for a heinous crime only has a mild prison term as a sanction, it won’t stop many perpetrators from carrying on with their plans. But if they know that a discovery may lead to the death penalty, it is reasonable to assume that there would be many who would drop their plans.

The capital punishment is also backed up man’s moral and conscience. Every man has inner blocks that prevent him from committing criminal acts. Common sense tells us that when the notion to plan and commit crimes comes up it is a lot easier to go along with this notion when there are no actual, painful, and deterrent punishments. But with the death penalty, on the other hand, it is not as easy to get by these inner moral- and conscience blocks and give in to all these dark notions. It is the obligation of the state governed by law to maintain and defend this support for man’s moral and conscience, and this is done most effectively by the death penalty.

It is also important that we are reminded of the fact that the prison terms and the death penalty does not have, as it’s primary goal, to be deterrent. The death penalty would be unacceptable if it’s only purpose was to deter people. The most important is to punish the guilty one, to see that retribution is made, that justice is administered and that the human value is acknowledged.

The death penalty would, in other words, be natural and righteous even if it did not have any deterrent effect what so ever.

There is a deep tragedy in this that the opponents to the death penalty don’t see that their struggle for the lives of these brutal criminals in the long run means that some innocent citizens will be hurt and killed.(1)

It is also frightening to see that even if the death penalty would deters many people from commit heinous crimes, there are some abolitionists who don’t care about that.(2)

When we understand and accept that the death penalty, more than any other punishment, deters some from committing heinous crimes, which leads to the saving of human lives, it becomes, also from that aspect, immoral and inhuman not to introduce the capital punishment.(3)

Footnote 1. In the year 1994 in Sweden, Tommy Zethraéus shot and killed four people and injured another twenty-three people. In the same year Mattias Flink killed seven people and injured one. In 1991-92 John Ausonius shot and killed one person and injured ten. All of these planned their crimes for some time. If Sweden had had the death penalty and consistently executed murderers, would some of these criminals have relinquished from their crime? We don’t know, but it is likely. Back.