Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: reform of government Message-ID: <4265@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 23-Aug-84 18:00:16 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.4265 Posted: Thu Aug 23 18:00:16 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 23-Aug-84 18:00:16 EDT References: <751@ubc-ean.CDN>, <1067@dciem.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 26 > ................. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that enacting > the death penalty reduces the rate for capital crimes, and there is > suggestive evidence that it does the opposite. Pardon the language, Martin, but the "suggestive evidence" is, in a word, utter garbage. Such a counterintuitive assertion should be quite well documented before being believed, and the studies which claim to support it are -- in practice -- so beset by apples-vs-oranges problems that they are worthless. There isn't even much good evidence about the more general question of punishment deterring crime; there is no possibility of making any sort of supportable statement about the death penalty. > So in acceding to the > wishes of the constituents for a reduction in the crime rate, the > politicians violate the wishes of the constituents to enact the death > penalty. The politicians are doing nothing so rational. They are voting against capital punishment because they think it's barbarous and dreadful, from a vaguely liberal everybody's-really-a-nice-guy-even-the-criminals point of view. I see no reason to accuse them of being rational about this, regardless of whether there is enough evidence for rationality to be possible. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry