(urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

[Gerry Quinn]

From: Lee Berman 


> Perhaps, as an American, I am more willing to believe in the effect of executions
> on willingness to murder because of the social experiment the US has provided in
> this regard. Not only do states with the death penalty have higher murder rates,
> but when a state legalizes the death penalty, the murder rate rises in the next
> few years. When a state outlaws the death penalty the murder rate declines for a
> few years. 

Are all possible confounding factors (such as, for example, death penalties being likely to be legalised/outlawed during periods when murder rates are rising/falling respectively for unrelated reasons) eliminated?

I don’t have any axe to grind here; perhaps the death penalty somehow does have a positive effect on the murder rate.  But scientific research in such fields is often highly agenda-driven, and agenda driven science is prone to miss explanations that are inimical to the agenda.

- Gerry Quinn

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