While a very few death penalty studies find that the death penalty has the deterrent effect on homicides, the majority of the
studies do not find. These contrasting and inconclusive findings raise an important question as to why the death penalty has little or no
deterrent effect on homicides. As Phillips and Hensley (1984) pointed out, failure to find solid evidence of the deterrent effect may
occur for one of two reasons: (1) either a deterrent effect can theoretically exist, but it does not actually exist, or (2) the methods
used to find the deterrent effect are not sophisticated enough to reveal it. Theoretically, the deterrent effect of the death penalty
could be achieved quickly and last only for a very short period of time (Andenaes, 1952; Phillips and Hensley, 1984). It is plausible that
the deterrent effects of executions become strongest when the number of newspaper and television coverage of execution reaches its peak
one day before and after an execution. However, as several researchers have repeatedly suggested that most of the past studies have
employed annual and monthly homicide data (Donohue and Wolfers, 2005; Hjalmarsson, 2009; Katz, Levitt, and Shustorovich, 2003). In short,
the main methodological limitation of the previous studies is that use of annually aggregated crime data may miss any deterrent effect in
studies of the death penalty on homicides that are short-lived, that the number of killings deterred is too small to be detected
excessively long temporal units such as years or months. The primary goals of this research were (1) to test whether an execution reduce
murders on given day in the given state, (2) to assess whether an publicized execution has a deterrent effect on homicides on the given
day in the given state, and (3) to determine whether the results of the analyses 1 and 2 remain consistent with temporal, regional,
demographic and non-capital punishment variations. Data are collected from the Mortality Detail Files including the exact dates of
homicides from January 1, 1979 through December 31, 2006. This study reveals a statistically significant deterrent effect of executions on
homicides on the day of an execution. Some remote significant deterrent effects of execution on the days 5 and 6 afterward could not be
interpreted as genuine deterrent effects because this pattern of the deterrent effects has nothing to do with the patterns of newspaper
and television coverage of executions. However, this study find no evidence indicative of the deterrent effects of publicized execution on
homicides. In addition, this study finds no evidence of a brutalization effect of executions on homicides. In summary, the evidence
suggests that executions do cause the homicide rates to drop, but only to a very small degree. It appears that, in the aggregate, the
small number of executions carried out in a typical year in the United States has very little impact on the recent declines in the number
of homicides. The robustness tests confirm the earlier findings, leading to the overall conclusion that executions do affect the behavior
of prospective killers, but only for a very brief period of time in a modest way. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / April 14, 2016. / death penalty, deterrence, execution, homicide / Includes bibliographical references. / Gary D. Kleck, Professor Directing Dissertation; David W. Rasmussen, University Representative;
William D. Bales, Committee Member; Theodore G. Chiricos, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_360519 |
| Contributors | Hong, Moonki (authoraut), Kleck, Gary (professor directing dissertation), Rasmussen, David W. (university representative), Bales, William D. (committee member), Chiricos, Theodore G. (Theodore George) (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (degree granting college) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource (152 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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