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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