Sveinbjorn Thordarson

"A crude way of trying to settle which camp [pro-capital punishment vs. anti-capital punishment] is correct is to compare murder rates in jurisdictions with and without capital punishment. This offers no support for the notion of deterrence. In 2005 there were 46% more murders per head in states with the death penalty than in those without it, and that gap has widened since 1990. The murder rate in the United States as a whole, moreover, is far higher than in western Europe, where capital punishment is a thing of the past." (Economist, Septemer 6 2007)