Does Deterrence Need Capital Punishment?

Abstract

Let us be clear about deterrence. No one can doubt that punishment prevents some crime by intimidating the offender who is punished and by its example to persons who might consider committing a similar offense. Deterrence is implied in the criminal codes, it is made visible by police patrols, it becomes a clearly communicated threat when an offender is convicted and sentenced. Along with many other students of the criminal justice system, Professor van den Haag entertains the opinion that the more severe the sentence, the more effective the threat will be in the prevention of crime. Because the death penalty seems to him and to many others an incomparably more severe sentence than any term of imprisonment, even imprisonment for life, he holds that for the crime of murder it should be resumed in the general administration of justice.