Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr GonZo
This made me laugh at both the irony of the ignorance and arrogance of the statement. You talk statistics? Let's go.
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No, I did not use that site, but it is far superior then the site that I did use. I did not post the links, because I had to go to 16 separate sights to get the numbers that I did (the website only had yearly numbers nationally and for each state, so there would have been 16 links). For the purposes of this post, there are only two links
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/kncrime.htm
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Now that I have your stats and better website, I will gladly use an even broader time period if you like. I will note that I did use 91 in my previous post, contrary to what you stated, I did not use 89 as I did not have those numbers from my inferior website. That website started at 1990 and went through 2006. However, now we can average it out over a 20 year period, if you would like a larger period of time, or shorter, feel free, I am sure the numbers will demonstrate the exact same result. But the numbers for 1984-2003, with 1994 being the midpoint, as that was when they decided to reinstate the death penalty for all of its deterrent purposes.
84-93
Kansas 4.88 murders per 100K
US rate 8.79 murders per 100K
Kansas as % of national rate 55%
94-03
Kansas 5.46 murders per 100K
US rate 6.58 murders per 100K
Kansas as % of national rate 83%
You will notice that the average number of murders in Kansas increased by about 11% over 94-03 compared with 84-93. Over the previous, biased time period, I stated that the number of murders increased by 12% from 94-97 compared with 90-93. Let us just say that in Kansas after the death penalty was instituted, murders increased by 11%. For every million people in Kansas, 6 more or so were murdered after the death penalty vis-à-vis before over those two time periods.
This would not really matter much if the national average was going up at the same time. One could safely assume that Kansas was just experiencing a murder increase along the lines of the rest of the nation. However, the national rate for murder decreased by 25% between 94-03 compared with 84-93. So while the rest of the country was experiencing a decline in the rate of murder, Kansas was experiencing an increase.
Then you mention that Kansas somehow missed out on the 1990’s boom. Please see the following website http://www.nam.org/Docs/IEA/26763_19...+Manufacturing which
shows Gross State Product for each state in the union from 1992 -2000. The GSP for Kansas was 3.2%, California was 3.7%. Not sure if that qualifies as a huge difference between the two states, and somehow the 3.2% happens to be very close to the national GDP growth of 3.67% over that period.
http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/...ate&JavaBox=no
You also mention that the rate of murder in Kansas is at its lowest level in 30 years over the past 6 years. That may technically be true, but as a percentage of the national rate they have had many lower years. 84-89 is one such period, in fact virtually every single period of 6 year increments before they switched to the death penalty, Kansas's murder rate as a percentage of the national rate was lower than the last 6 years. Why is the national rate falling at a faster rate than the rate in Kansas, the death penalty should be reducing murders, the rate should be far below what it was in the dark days of murderers living long and prospering.
You want deductive reasoning for why capital punishment increases murder rates, how about these guys want to die and murder seems like a good way of going about that. The numbers do not lie, murder rates are lower in states that do not have the death penalty. It serves no deterrent effect.