point the opposite direction, indicating that capital punishment has little to no effect on the .
occurrence of crime and is a profoundly discriminatory and a morally conflicting practice.
Americans are intimately concerned with crime rates and the safety within their .
communities. The most widely cited argument for the death penalty is the claim that it is an .
effective deterrent against the criminal act of murder. The argument suggests that defending one.
's life against the threat of potential legal execution would override any inclinations to commit .
the act of murder, also assuming that the potential murderer is of the condition to make rational .
decisions. Capital punishment simply bears little effect on the occurrence of such crimes. Only a .
small proportion of first degree murderers are sentenced to death and even fewer are executed. .
Although death sentences since 1980 have increased in number to about 250 per year , this is .
still only one percent of homicides known to the police. Of all those convicted on a charge of .
criminal homicide, only two percent, about one in fifty, are eventually sentences to death. Death .
penalty states in America as a group do not have lower rates of criminal homicide than non-.
death penalty states. In the 1980's death penalty states averaged an annual rate of 7.5 criminal .
homicides per 100,000 population, and abolition states averaged a rate of 7.4. Further more, .
most deterrence research has found that the death penalty has virtually the same effect as long .
imprisonment on homicide rates (Paternoster, 1991: 217-45). Former New York Police Chief .
Patrick V. Murphy wrote, "Like the emperor's new clothes, the flimsy notion that the death .
penalty is an effective law enforcement tool is being exposed as mere political puffery" (Murphy, .
1995). The claim that deterrence of crime is an effect of the practice of capital punishment is .
simply statistically invalid. .
Moral justification is also a very socially accepted argument for capital punishment as .