Without the conviction of morality, the easily frightened will not break the law, but the fearless will break the law, the irrational will break the law, and all others will break the law. .
Apparently certain sections of this society have been desensitized to the point that human life has no value whatsoever. To that section of the population nothing will hold deterrent value. These people do not think about the consequences of their actions. Lack of foresight and morals, however, cannot be used as an excuse for the toleration of crime. Capital punishment is a retributive justice, and no direct correlation to murder rates can be logically applied with respect to the death penalty's deterrent value. Actual statistics about the deterrent value of capital punishment are not available because it is impossible to know who may have been deterred from a committing a crime. .
Edward Laijas:.
If people are thinking of committing murder and are aware that they will be released because of early parole, then it will not effectively deter any future crime from happening. .
Jon Manning:.
If capital punishment were carried out more it would prove to be the crime deterrent it was partly intended. Most criminals would think twice before committing murder if they knew their own lives was at stake. As it turns out though very few people are executed and so the death penalty is not a satisfactory deterrent. During highly publicized death penalty cases the homicide rate is found to go down but it goes back up when the case is over (Bailey). .
Jessica Spinler:.
Executions maximize public safety through a form of incapacitation and deterrence. Incapacitating a person is depriving s/he of the physical or intellectual power of natural of il/legal qualifications (Webster, 574). Executing a person takes away the capacity of and forcibly prevents recurrence of violence. Deterrence is the act or process of discouraging and preventing an action from occurring (Webster, 307).
