If the death penalty did stop citizen killings, then the execution of Bonin should have stopped the kidnapping and murder of young men, yet when I was driving to work that Monday after Bill's death the news on the radio was talking about the body of a 15 year old boy found by the side of the road, tied up and murdered, much in the same way Bonin was to have done. The execution of Robert Alton Harris in 1992 was a high media event. In a study of the effect of executions in California done by Schiraldi and Godrey, the four months before and after Harris' execution were compared. So when the politicians incite anger in the voters in order to get their votes, they are encouraging violence, not trying to stop it. There is another very sad misconception connected with the death penalty, and that is the idea that an execution will bring healing and closure to the surviving members of the victim's family, and this too is encouraged to remain intact.
People expect the victim's surviving family members to cry for the blood of the murderer.
Sam said the ones most negatively impacted are the children in the surviving families. If adults want to, they can ask the questions and make the choice not to pursue a path of revenge, but children are told what to think, and if the message is hate, anger and fear, then that's what they will grow up with. Studies have shown that these children are more prone to violence and substance abuse when they become adults, which is no surprise. If the time spent between a murder and an execution is 10 years, that means the surviving family that wants revenge spends that time going over the pain and anger of their loss and represses any inner healing because they are waiting for the great day of the execution to solve all their problems . But that means that the whole family lives in extreme pain during that time, so of course any children who have to grow up in this atmosphere are going to be scarred.