DEATH PUNISHMENT DOES NOT DETER CRIME
Blaine, John J.
Death Punishment Does Not Deter Crime Statistics Show No Relationship Between Homicide Rales and Executions; Reformation Should Be Ruling Motive. By JOHN J. BLAINE (United States Senator from...
...In every jurisdiction where the purposes of punishment have been reformation and segregation, crime has been less flourishing...
...Environment is Overlooked WHEN we have found the cause of crime-we will find the proper corrective for crime...
...Low Homicide Kates TURNING our attention to the countries of the world, for a ten-year period, we find that the average homicide rate for the United States is 7.2 (and it will be noted that the death penalty obtains in most of the states), while in the following countries without the death punishment, the average homicide rate is, namely, Italy 3.59, Holland 0.31, Sweden, 1.31, Norway 0.82...
...He may morally and ethically take the life of the lower order for food and shelter...
...That law was based on revenge, retribution, vindictive punishment...
...The Creator made nothing in vain —all living things, whether by divine mandate or through the processes of growth and evolution—everything must have a purpose for its existence, and every living thing has its place in the eternal fitness of things—the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and the living things upon the earth...
...Reformation of the culprit is becoming more and more the accepted theory for punishment...
...Yet crime flourished in Great Britain while the British Government applied the ultimate sanction of death to a long category of offenses, great and small...
...The taking of human life as a mode of punishment is not justified in historical facts or human experience...
...There is the religious objection that "God gave life and only God should take it away...
...There is no single fact in history that supports death sentences or coc-poral punishment involving the whipping post, the pillory, the stock, the putting out of eyes, scalping, cutting off ears, lips, nose, hands and feet, or other physical matilation...
...In war, to fail to kill would mean no war...
...Death Penalty No Deterrent UPON the same authority it is shown that 12 states of the United States, namely, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Utah and California, for the year 1920, had a pepalation of 42,000,000...
...His investigation discloses that the death penalty is sporadic among American states and proves little...
...Morally and ethically, I am at complete disagreement with many of my conservationist friends...
...Morally and ethically I am of the conviction that it 13 wrong to conserve that we might kill for sport...
...Blackstone enumerates 100 offenses at common law which were punished by death...
...the evidence on every hand proves that it is not a cure...
...Blindly employing the methods of the barbarous past will not cure the crime of murder, or other offenses...
...If these facts prove anything, they prove that the death penalty has little or no effect as a deterrent...
...It is cruel and barbarous...
...This means that Massachusetts executed one person for every 200 homicides, Virginia one for every 50...
...Death sentences did net deter the commission of crime through the long centuries in the British Isles...
...How precious any life may be the mortal mind cannot conceive, but pain is evident in every death...
...The complementary purpose of punishment, namely, as a deterrent, has little standing before the array of facts developed through the experiences of states and nations...
...Whatever else this data proves, it at least conclusively proves thai there is some other cause for a low homicide rate than the infliction of the death penalty...
...Wherever those forms of punishment have prevailed crime has gone on unabated...
...Should Not Take Life IS THERE a moral and ethical right to take life, any life, and the most precious of all, human life...
...By JOHN J. BLAINE (United States Senator from Wisconsin) SO MUCH has been written and spoken on the subject of death penalties that it is difficult to make a contribution ttf the subject without repeating the arguments-that have been made time and again against the taking of human life as a mode of punishment...
...He declared that if any mischief followed, then life should be taken for life, and "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning by burning, wound for wound and stripe for stripe...
...While it is my conviction that morally and ethically it is wrong to take any life, there are, in the very nature of things, exceptions...
...For instance, in the North Atlantic Division, relatively speaking (those occupying the first, second and third positions having a low homicide rate, while those occupying the other positions have a high rate), Maine, without death penalties, stood second, Pennsylvania and New York, with death penalties, ninth and eighth...
...New York, England and Wales all impose the death penalty, New York imposing 193 sentences to death and England and Wales 231 sentences to death, yet New York had only about 1/4 the population and there were 75% more homicides...
...I am convinced that the old doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth cannot be sustained as the basis of punishment...
...he handed down more than the Ten Commandments...
...Of course the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," does not mean (or at least most people with Christian convictions do not interpret that commandment as meaning) that life should not be taken under any circumstances...
...Quoting another, "Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than by the severity of punishment...
...Had we an exact science that could fathom the mystery of the brain and the nerves, and if we were able to classify mankind on the basis of heredity and environment, we might then establish a laboratory out of which would come the cure for crime...
...Punishment by death is not a deterrent...
...In the North Central Division, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, without death penalties, stood first, second and third, while Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, with death sentences, stood sixth, eighth and seventh...
...Many centuries later a new doctrine was preached: self-abnegation, the turning of the right cheek that the enemy might smite the other one...
...Revenge as a Deterrent IF THE objects of punishment are retribution, revenge or vindictireness, any form of punishment is justifiable and the degree of the atrociousoess of the penalty should then only depend upon the degree of the offense...
...We know the instincts of mankind but we are woefully lacking in knowledge of the delicate mechanism of the brain and nervous system...
...it is morally and ethically wrong, unchristian, impractical and inexpedient...
...punishment would not be so difficult to establish...
...So long as we overlook heredity and environment we will fail to discover the cause of crime and continue groping in the dark in devising penalties...
...it cheapens life...
...Setting aside for the time the religious, moral and ethical objections to taking human life by law, our attention is called to the practicability or the expediency of doing away with death sentences...
...Reformation is True Theory I DOUBT if there is any considerable number of thoughtful people who believe that punishment is for retribution or revenge...
...Among the American states the death penalty has not decreased homicides...
...Man is the higher order of animals...
...And yet this form of punishment prevails in so-called religious or Christian countries...
...She was "like a cruel surgeon who cuts off every limb, which through ignorance or indolence he will not attempt to cure...
...When Moses handed down the law...
...Individuals interpret the commandment according to their own individual conception of religion...
...But the limitations of this article will not permit an extended analysis of the objects or purposes of punishment...
...For instance, over an eight-year period, divided into periods of four years each, Virginia had a high homicide rate, and executed four murderers in the first period for every 100 homicides, and in the second period only 2.2, while Massachusetts, with a homicide rate less than a third the size of Virginia's, executed for every 100 homicides 1.5 in the first period and only 0.5 in the second...
...Not until Great Britain wiped out its severity of punishments in the long line of offenses did she become the envy of the world for the scarcity of punishable offenses...
...When we make a comparison between the homicide rates of the .United States and other death penalty states, it will be noted that there is no relationship whatever between the death penalty and the number of homicides...
...I do claim, however, that history in this instance disproves the claim that the death penalty is a deterrent...
...England and Wales had a population under 38,000,000...
...The form of killing determines only the duration of the psin and the degree of cruelty...
...I do not claim that the death sentence for all types of crimes was the cause of excessive crime...
...In other words, the variation is so great between homicide rates and executions in the various states and countries having the death penalty that it must be concluded that the death penalty is not a deterrent...
...No Capital Punishment States THE STATES having no capital punishment, for a ten-year period, have a low homicide rate in comparison with death penalty states...
...In the 12 American states, with only 12% mora population, there were nine times as many homicides, in spite of the fact that there were 2 1/2 times as many persons sentenced to death and 3 1/2 times as many executed as there were in England and Wales...
...We have moved a step forward from that position...
...When Death Penalty Flourished UNDER the common law Great Britain punished a multitude of offenses, in some instances offenses no greater than misdemeanors under our American law, by imposing death sentences...
...Comparing, again, the United, States with countries having the death penalty, we find England and Wales having an average homicide rate of only 0.70, Scotland 0.40, Ireland 0.92, Spain 0.92, New Zealand 0.93...
...In the state of New York, with a population of ten- and a half million, for a ten-year period, there were 4,626 homicides...
...in England and Wales during the same period, homicides...
...In the Western Division, Washington and Oregon, without the death sentences, have stood in the relative positions of four, five and six...
...A complete statistical analysis of homicides and executions in states and countries having the death penalty shows beyond any doubt that there is no relation whatever between the homicide rate and executions for homicides...
...If we could arrive at an agreement as to the objects of punishment, the form of...
...Out present social organization, with the advance of science and the study of crime and its causes, will lead any thoughtful person to a conclusion quite contrary to the doctrine of vengeance or retribution...
...Vermont in the first period executed at the rate of 7.4 persons per 100 homicides, with a very low homicide rate, while New Hampshire had an equally low rate and executed none in the same period, while in the second period, the homicide rates running low, Vermont executed none and New Hampshire executed at the rate of 8 persons per 100 homicides...
...As authority for this statement I need but the the very excellent contribution that Warden Lawes of Sing Sing Prison has made...
...It is also conceded that life may be taken in self-defense...
Vol. 19 • August 1927 • No. 8
