The Death Penalty should be Abolished

ABOUT DETERRENCE First off, I need to correct my opponent’s statement about studies done on the death penalty, because it is false. He says: “From this, we can see that out of all studies performed on the death penalty, a large majority of them prove to have the effect to lower crime rates. ” He arrives at this conclusion from counting all the death penalty studies collected on a pro death penalty website and then extrapolates this information to say that this pool represents all the studies that have been performed since 1996. This is obviously not true - even though the website that he cites only lists 5 studies showing no deterrence effect, over 15 different studies have been done within the last decade that affirm my position, as listed in the link below. There have been just as many, if not more studies, that cast doubt on the deterrence effect of the death penalty, if not more. Additionally, he fails to mention that all of the pro death penalty studies listed on the CJLF has faced significant academic backlash and shown to be inconclusive at best. Let me take a quote from the website I’m citing from: “A report released on April 18, 2012, by the prestigious National Research Councilof the National Academies based on a review of more than three decades of research concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the death penalty are fundamentally flawed. The report concluded: “The committee concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide. ” Secondly, a survey of authority figures on capital punishment shows that over 87% of US criminologists agree that the Death Penalty has no significant impact on homicide rates, an increase of 7% from 3 years ago. A large majority of police chiefs, who have first hand experience dealing with criminals, agree that criminals do not think about the range of possible punishments before committing a crime and when asked what would they do to lower crime rates capital punishment was consistently ranked last, scoring and average of 2 out of 20, whereas social programs such as welfare and funding for mental institutions consistently came first. Finally, common sense suggests that capital punishment does not make a significant impact on homicide rates. First off, of the safest, most crime - free countries in the world, next to none have the Death Penalty. Countries like Canada, Australia, Sweden and Finland all have lower crime rates than the US, suggesting that the issue is more likely caused by the culture of the country and it’s people rather than it’s policies on capital punishment. Second of all, most murders are either committed on impulse, impairment or mental imbalances or carefully planned out fully aware that they face the threat of life imprisonment. Either way it is unlikely that the Death Penalty will have any sort of deterrence effect on these minds. . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... ABOUT COST There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that capital punishment is more costly than incarceration, even imprisonment till the criminal’s death. This is because of the cost of the special security death row cells and the extended legal process (which often takes up to 15 years from court to the electric chair! ). The state of California, for example, put a total of $4,000,000,000 since 1978. And they only actually executed thirteen criminals. . http://money.cnn.com... If the only argument my opponent can extend in favor of capital punishment is that it deters criminals, then doesn’t it make more sense to invest that 4 billion into things we know will actually prevent crime and criminologists and police officers actually agree with, such as an increased police force or better mental institutions, rather than taking a blind gamble and using that money to execute 13 criminals for something that has been shown to be inconclusive at best? As an added plus, we’d be addressing the root of the problem by changing criminals to good citizens with social programs, rather just making them hesitate before committing a crime. For these reasons, this resolution must and will stand. More arguments to come later since I’m running out of time. Back to con.