Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr GonZo
Drastically? Perhaps a tad. Other than a murder in the prison, escape or early parol, which are all very realistic situations for murderers.
Second of all, it's hardly valid statistics to compare different states in different punishment environments. Living standards, crime rates in general, weapons per capita ratio are all variables that are significant to such a comparison. The only true way of comparing the impact of caplital punishment (I won't use the acronym for obvious reasons) is by comparing murder rates directly before and directly after (maybe a time span of a few years) it's introduction/termination in the same area.
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Well here is a comparison
1990-1993 Kansas Average Murders per 100K - 5.6
1994-1997 Kansas Average Murders per 100K - 6.2
Take a guess which time period had the death penalty
This in a time period when, for a point of reference, the average murder rate in the states was as follows:
1992 - 9.3 murders per 100K (across the entire country)
1997 - 6.7 murders per 100K (across the entire country)
So the murder rate has been cut by about 33% nationally, yet in Kansas the murder rate goes up about 12%. Anyone who thinks that the death penalty does anything other than encourage more murders simply does not understand stats.