Quote:
Originally Posted by EddyBeers
Anyone who thinks that the death penalty does anything other than encourage more murders simply does not understand stats.
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This made me laugh at both the irony of the ignorance and arrogance of the statement. You talk statistics? Let's go.
First of all, a good researcher always states the origin of his findings, Im guess you got yours
here.
Good work on choosing those years, as so many people do, they use data that will encourage their point. 1990 shows a much lower murder rate than 1989 and 1991, so good for you. How about the fact that there has been a steady decrease in the murder rate from 1994 and onward, and the murder rate in Kansas has consistently been at it's lowest the last half decade in 30 years? How do you explain that?
Moreover, by your logic, does this mean that capital punishment also encourages burglary, seeing those increased during those chosen years as well? Or better yet, maybe capital punishment decreases auto theft, seeing those numbers went down dramatically after 1994? You get my point, not only is there no correlation between murder rates and capital punishment, your conclusive causality is very obviously erroneous.
Furthermore, I don't see where you get your US stats from because I clearly read off the data that between 1994-1997 the murder rate per 100k is 7.9. That's a 17% drop, compared to the 33% drop as you state. Please show a link.
Why do you think murder rates in the US went down during this period? Do you think it has anything to do with the economic boom some regions encountered during the internet stock market bubble? Look at California for instance, murder rates plummeted during the mid 90's, which may be due to the increased job opportunities and welfare. Kansas kinda missed the boat on that one didn't they?
I don't have the time nor the encouragement to research statistical data showing crime rates going down after the introduction of capital punishment, but I'm still betting that capital punishment generally scares people away from doing things that can get them executed.
And finally, from a deductive perspective, how may I ask do you argue that the capital punishment encourages murder? I can't think of any logical reasoning behind your omnipotent statistical wisdom.
Please pardon my cynicism, but you gave me the high hat, I'm just hitting the ball back in your side of the court.