THE DEATH PENALTY
THE ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT
DOES THE DEATH PENALTY DETER CRIME?
GETTING THE FACTS STRAIGHT
MYTH
The death penalty deters violent crime and
makes society safer.
FACT
Evidence from around the world has
shown that the death penalty has no
unique deterrent effect on crime. Many
people have argued that abolishing the
death penalty leads to higher crime rates,
but studies in the USA and Canada,
for instance, do not back this up. In 2004
in the USA, the average murder rate for
states that used the death penalty was
5.71 per 100,000 of the population as
against 4.02 per 100,000 in states that
did not use it. In 2003 in Canada, 27
years after the country abolished the
death penalty the murder rate had fallen
by 44 per cent since 1975, when capital
punishment was still enforced. Far from
making society safer, the death penalty
has been shown to have a brutalizing
effect on society. State sanctioned killing
only serves to endorse the use of force
and to continue the cycle of violence.
MYTH
The death penalty reduces drug crime.
FACT
In March 2008, the Executive Director of
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime called
for an end to the use of the death penalty
for drugs offences: “Although drugs kill,
I don’t believe we need to kill because
of drugs.”
The use of the death penalty for drug
offences is a violation of international law.
Article 6(2) of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights states:
“In countries which have not abolished
the death penalty, sentence of death
may be imposed only for the most serious
crimes.” In April 2007, the UN Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary,
or arbitrary executions, acting as an
expert w itness i n a chal lenge to
Indonesi a’s Constitution, told the
Constitutional Court that “[d]eath is not
an appropriate response to the crime of
drug trafficking.” Apart from Indonesia,
China, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and
Singapore are some of the countries
which execute people for drug offences.
However, there is no clear evidence that
the use of the death penalty for such
crimes acts as a stronger deterrent than
long terms of imprisonment.
MYTH
Individuals are less likely to commit violent
crimes, including murder, if they know they
will face punishment by execution.
FACT
This argument supposes that criminals
study and anticipate the consequences
of getting caught, and decide that a long
term of imprisonment is acceptable,
whereas execution is not. Many crimes
are committed on the spur-of-the-
moment, leaving little opportunity for
potential punishments to influence
whether the crime is committed in the
first place as criminals do not believe
they will be caught and held to account.
The death penalty may even cause
further violence. Execution is the ultimate
sanction a state can inflict upon a person.
Once criminals have knowingly committed
a capital offence, they no longer have any
interest in lessening their potential
punishment by not committing further
murders or other offences. For example,
if armed robbery carries the death penalty,
the robber loses nothing by committing
murders while attempting to flee.
Index: ACT/015/2008
