In December last year a Congressman from Ohio named Kucinich introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty - the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of2005, which is co- sponsored by 39 members of Congress. "The death penalty is not an effective deterrent," Representative Kucinich says. "Homicide rates in states with the death penalty are no lower than rates in abolitionist states. Of the twelve states without the death penalty, ten have murder rates below the national average." Representative Kucinich says he believes violent offenders ought to be punished but that capital punishment "is not a deterrent, allows innocent people to be executed and marginalizes the United States in the fight for human rights in the international community”. There have been a 122 people released from death row in the U.S. since reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Looking at this data , we need to strongly challenge the death penalty as an effective deterrent.
But let's consider another possible relationship between executions and murders. We know that only very few people are aware when someone is being executed, that it's almost a media secret, and that it's pretty unlikely to deter people who aren't even faced with the picture of what might happen to them if they murder someone. Given that it is not effectively represented to those who would murder, it appears not to deter the people who end up on death row. But if capital punishment does not deter these individuals, it is possible that it actually encourages the kinds of conditions that make capital crime more likely. Violent, unjust societies are more likely to create violent citizens than societies that take seriously the struggles of their poor people and their political dissidents. If the state is violent, its people will be inclined to accept violence as a solution to social problems, In this context, it becomes apparent that the prison, in general, might not be so much a "corrections" system as a profitable...