Is the death penalty justified?
advocate | contrary | prohibit | release | reverse
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Think Scientifically
Think Scientifically
Mr. Seemy was discussing the death penalty with his students.
“If a state allows the death penalty, people in that state must be more scared to commit crimes than people in states that do not have the death penalty,” says James, advocating the death penalty.
“No way!” Miranda replied. “Just because the punishment is worse doesn’t mean there’s going to be less crime. When someone is going to commit a crime that bad, they aren’t thinking about the punishment.”
“On the contrary, there are studies that show that criminals do think about the punishment, and harsher punishment gives them more adrenaline when they commit a crime,” Mr. Seemy stated. “As of December 2019, 29 states prohibit the death penalty. Let’s look to see if the crime rate in states that do allow the death penalty is lower than the crime rate in states that do not allow the death penalty.”
Mr. Seemy found some interesting statistics online about the murder rates in death penalty versus non–death penalty states from 1990–2018.
What patterns do you notice within these data? Do states prohibiting the death penalty have a higher or lower murder rate?
Do these data support Miranda’s or James’ assumptions? Explain.
Discussion Question:
Discussion Question:
It is tempting to conclude that the difference you see in this graph between death penalty and non–death penalty states represents a causal effect. Why is that a dangerous conclusion? What additional data would you seek to determine whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship?
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