Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Understanding Disparate Results

Objectives

Investigate how different model assumptions have driven the conflicting findings in the literature on the deterrence effect of capital punishment.

Methods

The deterrence effect of capital punishment is estimated across different models that reflect the following sources of model uncertainty: (1) the uncertainty about the probability model generating the aggregate murder rate equation, (2) the uncertainty about the determinants of an individual’s choice of committing a murder or not, (3) the uncertainty about state level heterogeneity, and (4) the uncertainty about the exchangeability between observations with zero murder case and those with positive murder cases.

Results

First, the estimated deterrence effects exhibit great dispersion across models. Second, a particular subset of models—linear models with constant coefficients—always predict a positive deterrence effect. All other models predict negative deterrence effects. Third, the magnitudes of the point estimates of deterrence effects differ mainly because of the choice of linear versus logistic specifications.

Conclusions

The question about the deterrence effect of capital punishment cannot be answered independently from substantive assumptions on what determines individual behavior. The need for judgment cannot be escaped in empirical work.     

Pitfalls in the Use of Time Series Methods to Study Deterrence and Capital Punishment

Objectives

Evaluate the use of various time series methods to measure the deterrence effect of capital punishment.

Methods

The analysis of the time series approach to deterrence is conducted at two levels. First, the mathematical foundations of time series methods are described and the link between the time series properties of aggregate homicide and execution series and individual decision making is developed. Second, individual studies are examined for logical consistency.

Results

The analysis concludes that time series methods used to study the deterrence effects of capital punishment suffer from fundamental limitations and fail to provide credible evidence. The common limitation of these studies is their lack of attention to identification problems. Suggestions are made as to directions for future work that may be able to mitigate the weaknesses of the current literature.

Conclusions

Time series studies of capital punishment suffer from sufficiently serious identification problems that existing empirical findings are compatible with either the presence or the absence of a deterrent effect.     

Desert, Justice and Capital Punishment

Our purpose in this paper is to consider a procedural objection to the death penalty. According to this objection, even if the death penalty is deemed, substantively speaking, a morally acceptable punishment for at least some murderers, since only a small proportion of those guilty of aggravated murder are sentenced to death and executed, while the majority of murderers escape capital punishment as a result of arbitrariness and discrimination, capital punishment should be abolished. Our targets in this paper are two recent attempts, by Thomas Hurka and Michael Cholbi respectively, to defend the view that ‘levelling down’ (that is, reducing the punishment imposed on a criminal from the punishment he absolutely deserves to a less severe punishment in order to achieve proportionality relative to the criminals who have escaped the punishment they absolutely deserve) is, in the context of capital punishment, morally permissible. We argue that both Hurka and Cholbi fail to show why the arbitrariness and discrimination objection impugns the death penalty.

Taking Capital Punishment Seriously

Although Asia is the most important region of the world when it comes to capital punishment, it is also one of the most understudied. This article identifies four research questions that deserve attention from students and scholars who believe taking capital punishment seriously requires studying Asia seriously too. What are the empirical contours of capital punishment in contemporary Asia? What are the histories of capital punishment in Asia? Can Western theories of capital punishment explain patterns and changes in Asia? And what is the future of capital punishment in Asia? If researchers take the trouble to explore these questions, the death penalty will not only become an interesting window into law and society in Asia, but Asia will prove to be an instructive window into the death penalty—the gravest real-life problem in the law.     

监狱惩罚机能与改造机能的冲突与融合

我国传统刑罚执行理论中关于对惩罚与改造关系的认识存在着理论缺陷,监狱惩罚作为手段违背了行刑本质机能与次生机能的逻辑关系,并会造成刑罚目的的异化.惩罚机能和改造机能存在着本来的冲突,惩罚机能强调共性,改造机能强调个性,两者在制度的支撑上也存在着冲突.但在现代社会条件下,惩罚机能与改造机能又可以高度融合,因为两者在目标与生成社会性基础上具有统一性.惩罚与改造的最终目标都在于使罪犯顺利重返社会,惩罚的内化需求和改造的外化动力为当代监狱的社会功能需求奠定了深刻的社会性生成基础.     

美国监狱刑罚执行文化的透视与思考

考察美国监狱刑罚执行文化,透视其与司法文化、社会文化、人文文化的关联性,思考我国推进和创新监狱刑罚执行文化的价值取向,得出的有益启示是:拓展刑罚执行方式的社会性,重视刑罚执行本质的惩罚性、实现刑罚执行体制的统一性.     

Economic Conditions, Deterrence and Juvenile Crime: Evidence from Micro Data

This article investigates the determinants of criminal activityamong juveniles in the United States. It uses a survey of U.S.high school students conducted in 1995, which provides detailedinformation on offenses; personal, family, and neighborhoodcharacteristics; as well as deterrence measures. The determinantsof selling drugs and committing assault, robbery, burglary,and theft are analyzed separately for males and females. Theresults provide some evidence that juveniles respond to incentivesand sanctions. Employment opportunities and policies designedto increase the probability of arrest may be effective toolsfor reducing juvenile crime.     

国际人权与死刑──以国际人权法为线索的分析兼及中国的应对

国际人权法对死刑的态度经历了由放任到限制再到废除的转变。《世界人权宣言》对死刑以沉默显示放任;《公民权利与政治权利国际公约》等对死刑转向了限制;《旨在废除死刑的〈公民权利与政治权利国际公约〉第二议定书》等对死刑明令废除。中国现行死刑制度与国际人权法的要求尚存较大距离,应该采取必要的应对措施尽快缩短这一距离。     

Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment

Numerous studies have examined the influence of victim race on capital punishment, with a smaller number focused on victim gender. But death penalty scholars have largely ignored victim social status. Drawing on Black's (1976) multidimensional theoretical concept, the current research examines the impact of victim social status on the district attorney's decision to seek the death penalty and the jury's decision to impose a death sentence. The data include the population of cases indicted for capital murder in Harris County (Houston), Texas, from 1992 to 1999 (n=504). The findings suggest that victim social status has a robust influence on the ultimate state sanction: Death was more likely to be sought and imposed on behalf of high‐status victims who were integrated, sophisticated, conventional, and respectable. The research also has implications beyond capital punishment. Because victim social status has rarely been investigated in the broader sentencing literature, Black's concept provides a theoretical tool that could be used to address such an important omission.     

Framing Capital Punishment in Japan: Avoidance,Ambivalence, and Atonement

This article examines how two of Japan’s largest newspapers frame death penalty issues. Through a content analysis of 7,153 Asahi and Nikkei articles in the 66-month period from January 1, 2007 to June 30, 2012, 11 death penalty frames are identified: inevitability, atonement by dying, atonement by living, victims’ rights and emotions, human rights, miscarriage of justice, calls for discussion, life without parole, deterrence, public support, and retribution. In addition to frames, we examined who the main voices are in each article on capital punishment. We found that avoidance and ambivalence are the two main approaches taken by Asahi and Nikkei to cover death penalty issues, and the most surprising finding is the high salience of atonement as a frame for thinking about capital punishment. In Japan, atonement is used to justify (atone by dying) and oppose (atone by living) the death penalty. Although atonement by living in prison and atonement by dying at the gallows imply radically different outcomes, the flexibility of the atonement frame may suggest new possibilities for Japan’s anti-death penalty movement.     

监狱刑罚执行工作发展动向前瞻——以《刑法修正案（八）》的相关规定为切入

《中华人民共和国刑法修正案（八）》（以下简称《刑法修正案（八）》）以贯彻中央政法委员会《关于深化司法体制和工作机制改革若干问题的意见》和进一步落实宽严相济的刑事政策为主线,把调整刑罚结构和规范非监禁刑的适用作为此次刑法修改的重点。《刑法修正案（八）》的出台意味着我国刑事法治之刑罚观的重大调整,     

监狱刑罚执行性质的多维度思索

监狱刑罚执行的性质可以从多个维度进行分析.从权力性质上分析,监狱刑罚执行权应是行政权而不是司法权;从法律关系角度分析,监狱刑罚执行法律关系应是刑事法律关系而不是行政法律关系;从行为性质分析,监狱刑罚执行行为既是执行行为,又是管理行为;从行为的可诉性角度分析,监狱刑罚执行行为是一种可诉行为.     

美国司法中死刑的适用及其问题

死刑的保留和适用,不但在美国本上引起颇多争议,而且也受到了欧美国家和"世界人权观察”、"大赦国际”等国际组织的密切关注和尖锐的批评.本文将简要介绍美国适用死刑的基本情况及严重违反人权的问题,或许有助于我们认识美国"司法公正”的真相.     

Distrust of Government, the Vigilante Tradition, and Support for Capital Punishment

This study probes the interconnections among distrust of government, the historical context, and public support for the death penalty in the United States with survey data for area-identified samples of white and black respondents. Multilevel statistical analyses indicate contrary effects of government distrust on support for the death penalty for blacks and whites, fostering death penalty support among whites and diminishing it among blacks. In addition, we find that the presence of a "vigilante tradition," as indicated by a history of lynching, promotes death penalty support among whites but not blacks. Finally, contrary to Zimring's argument in The Contradictions of Capital Punishment , we find no evidence that vigilantism moderates the influence of government distrust on support for the death penalty, for either whites or blacks. Our analyses highlight the continuing influence of historical context as well as contemporary conditions in the formation of public attitudes toward criminal punishment, and they underscore the importance of attending to racial differences in the analysis of punitive attitudes.     

从四川监狱布局调整看监狱布局对刑罚执行的重要影响

执行刑罚是监狱工作的主线,而监狱布局调整是我国监狱当前工作的重大举措,是建设现代化文明监狱事业的关键转折。正确认识和理解监狱布局调整对刑罚执行的重大影响作用,对促进监狱事业的发展有十分重要的意义。一、结合四川监狱布局实际,分析布局不合理对刑罚执行的影响四川共有押犯监狱42个。由于历史原因,监狱布局不合理的问题十分突出,主要有以下特征:一是分布边远山区的监狱数量过多,远离经济、文化和政治中心问题突出。42个监狱分布在16个市、州,最远相距上千公里,地处村镇边远地区的监狱占67.4%,有的监狱甚至是从人迹罕至的原始森林里…