Is that a shrub in your pocket...

or are you just a corporate profiteer?

Saturday, June 05, 2004

Death Penalty Ok, so, all the pro-death folks out there are always talking about how the death penalty is a deterrent to murder. So you'd figure that states with the death penalty would have much lower murder rates, right? Well, I've wondered about that for a while, and I finally got around to checking out the stats. So, I managed to find the homicide and population statistics for the year 2000, and I loaded them into a spreadsheet. For some reason, Florida failed to show up, but I managed to find their stats eventually (interestingly enough, Florida is the #4 state population-wise, but has the 2nd highest Crime Index). So, it turns out that states with the death penalty average 5.17 homicides per 100,000 people. States without the death penalty average 2.82. If you add up the homicides in all 38 death penalty states and divide by their total population, the number jumps to a whopping 7.13 murders per 100,000. In the 12 non-death penalty states, the number comes to 3.65. Either way you figure it, you're almost twice as likely to get whacked in a death penalty state. Watch out if you head to Louisiana. They came in at #1 in murders per hundred thousand, with 12.53. For sheer volume, California takes the prize, with 2,079 murders in 2000. You'll get good odds at making it to old age if you live in North Dakota (a non-death penalty state), where there were a scant 4 homicides (a paltry - and national low - 0.62 murders per 100K). But what about the "burn 'em" states? You know, the ones for whom executions are a fun, family event? During 2000, Texas (under the stewardship of the Shrub) was the big winner, having executed 40 people. The Texas murder rate? 5.94 per hundred thousand, or roughly twice the rate in the average non-death penalty state. Other states with multiple executions in 2000 include Oklahoma (5.27), which executed 11 inmates, Virginia (5.67) 8, Florida (5.65) 6, Missouri (6.20) 5, Alabama (7.4) 4, Arizona (7.00) 3 and Arkansas (6.28) 2. So, is the death penalty really a deterrent? If it is, what does that say about Texans?

posted by pjs 8:10 PM
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